What to expect from Firebird in February

Firebird makes a welcome return to St John the Evangelist in Oxford with the generous support of the Morris-Venables Charitable Foundation following the orchestra’s hugely successful 2017 sell-out début. Let’s find out more…

Firebird’s programme promises some of the finest classical music in the repertoire. Opening with Mozart’s spellbindingly energetic overture to his comic opera, The Magic Flute, we will be immediately transported to a fairy-tale land of magical instruments, serpents and sorcerers in Mozart’s timeless classic.

Next we dive headlong into Tchaikovsky’s magnificent and much loved Concerto No.1 for Piano and Orchestra. Firebird’s Artistic Director Marc Corbett-Weaver will be the piano soloist, pitted against the full weight of the symphony orchestra under the baton of George Jackson.

The work in the second half of the concert must be one of the best-known compositions in classical music. With its opening notes among the most recognisable in history, Beethoven’s mighty 5th Symphony has been described by ETA Hoffman as ‘one of the most important works of the time’.

We may never be sure what Beethoven was trying to express with this piece – was it his belief in the belief in the French Revolution? Or was he railing against fate and his increasing deafness? Whatever this music is trying to say this is certainly turbulent music from a turbulent man living in a turbulent age, and will ensure that this will certainly be a Firebird night to remember.

Firebird in February

Sunday 10 February 2019
St John-the-Evangelist, Oxford @ 6pm

Generously sponsored by the Morris-Venables Charitable Foundation

Mozart Overture to Die Zauberflöte K. 620
Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1in Bb minor, Op. 23
Beethoven Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67

George Jackson conductor
Marc Corbett-Weaver piano