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Ryan Bancroft and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales give an extraordinary, terrifying account of Shostakovich’s Thirteenth Symphony, preceded by a Classical-Romantic tussle in Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto. 

The BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conductor Ryan Bancroft and violinist Anthony Marwood deliver an evening of rapid gear-shifting, punchy momentum, dancing lyricism and mischief at Hoddinott Hall.

B Tommy Andersson's music promises more than it delivers in this showcase concert with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. 

BBC National Orchestra of Wales's afternoon concert series brings unusual works to light, but the small auditorium can make some of the heavier late-romantic orchestration overwhelming – to the point of being overpowering.

On Wednesday evening the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales, conducted by Adrian Partington, presented a programme of choral music by the two musical friends Poulenc and Britten.

“Three concertos and an epitaph” is how the Wales Millennium Centre summed up tonight’s concert. Not only did the selected programme focus almost exclusively on three composers’ essays in the concerto genre, but it also spanned a narrow period of time within the mid 20th-century: 22 years in total, or 38 if one includes Andrzej Panufnik’s Katyn Epitaph.

The announcement by the presenter that Stravinsky did not intend Symphonies of Wind Instruments to please the audience or arouse their passions was greeted with titters of laughter. An overheard conversation during the interval signalled that the number of late arrivals to the concert was suspected to be ‘because they didn’t want to sit through the Stravinsky’.

Composed in under a month in 1945 against the backdrop of a burning, war-torn Dresden, Strauss’ Metamorphosen provided the perfect opening to a concert which explored themes of desolation and mourning. Commissioned by Swiss conductor Paul Sacher, Metamorphosen is a composition for 23 strings, inspired by Goethe’s poem ‘Niemand wird sich Selber kennen’ (‘No one can know himself’).

This late-season concert in the intimate BBC Hoddinott Hall was Thomas Søndergård’s first as Principal Conductor Designate of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, following his appointment to the role this week. The concert featured three pieces all looking to the future, in some way: Sibelius’ En Saga, a Prokofiev Violin Concerto and Dvořák’s New World Symphony.

A rare sunny afternoon in Cardiff Bay was the ideal setting for this afternoon’s concert: an all-French programme in the intimate surroundings of the Wales Millennium Centre’s Hoddinott Hall.Having long been overshadowed by the Rite of Spring (which received its premiere two weeks later), Debussy’s ballet Jeux has been unjustly neglected.