麻豆社

Verity Sharp begins a week featuring performances by 麻豆社 National Orchestra of Wales, today focusing on British music including Finzi's Clarinet Concerto and Holst's The Planets.

As Cardiff Singer of the World gets under way, Afternoon on 3 celebrates one of the competition's house orchestras, the 麻豆社 National Orchestra of Wales, in music from all corners of Britain and Ireland. Finzi's Clarinet Concerto, performed here by 麻豆社 NOW Principal Clarinet Robert Plane, is the English composer's most widely performed and recorded work. Elgar's Sea Pictures and Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture evoke the waters around the British Isles, while Stanford's Rhapsody is inspired by Ireland. The programme ends with Holst's The Planets, now such a concert-hall fixture that it's easy to forget that its musical language once seemed startlingly modern.

2pm
Finzi: Clarinet Concerto
麻豆社 National Orchestra of Wales
Robert Plane (clarinet)
Martyn Brabbins (conductor)

2.40pm
Elgar: Sea Pictures
Jennifer Johnston (mezzo-soprano)
麻豆社 National Orchestra of Wales
Francesco Angelico (conductor)

3.05pm
Stanford: Irish Rhapsody
麻豆社 National Orchestra of Wales
Francesco Angelico (conductor)

3.20pm
Mendelssohn: Hebrides Overture
麻豆社 National Orchestra of Wales
Alexandre Bloch (conductor)

3.35pm
Holst: The Planets
麻豆社 National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales
Martyn Brabbins (conductor).