Sibelius, Clyne and Stravinsky
Kensington Symphony Orchestra
Russell Keable
Conductor
Sibelius
The Oceanides
Anna Clyne
This is Midnight Hour
Stravinsky
Petrushka (original 1911 version)

Sibelius’s tone poem The Oceanides (1913-14) depicts the nymphs in Greek mythology who inhabited the Mediterranean Sea. Building from a placid opening to a crashing climax, the piece was described on its première as “the finest evocation of the sea ever produced in music”.

This Midnight Hour (2014), by the British composer Anna Clyne, was inspired by poems by Juan Ramón Jiménez and Charles Baudelaire. The single-movement work has been variously described as “stormy”, “filmic”, a “tipsy dance” requiring out-of-tune strings to imitate an accordion, and “something Edith Piaf would have sung”.

The original 1911 version of Stravinsky’s Petrushka – scored for larger orchestra than his 1947 revision – tells the story of three puppets that come to life during a fair in 19th-century St Petersburg. The composer initially saw the piece as a concert work (including “diabolical cascades of arpeggios”), but was persuaded by Sergei Diaghilev to write a ballet, with Vaslav Nijinsky dancing the title role in the première.