Mark Elder

It's funny, I often go into an OEE rehearsal room and I'll see someone from the past and I think, God, What do they know? What have they seen? But I had a great time at university.

I felt extremely lucky to go to Cambridge, study music, very academic course, but the musical opportunities that were offered to us played in an orchestra under Mark Elder, who's performing with the orchestra tonight, with the late Roger Norrington.

And I remember thinking at that time, And this is one of the things that still drives me today.

I'd be in the orchestra, second flute, to first flute, who now plays for the OEE quite a lot, Rosie Boger.

It's probably going to have some vacant space in the day.

And it can, we believe, be done by any organisation.

Yeah, that thing of... who are going to be the next audience members, the next Nettie Israelis, the next Mark Elder.

We've got to think about that because music education is different.

Let's move on to the Contemporary category, which we're delighted is sponsored by organizations who do so much to support the work of today's composers, PPL and PRS for Music.

Was won by the Hallé Orchestra with a recording of music by Huw Watkins, conducted by Sir Mark Elder, and that's on the Hallé's own label.

The repertoire, the Concerto for Orchestra, A Fanfare for the Hallé, and Symphony Number Two.

Um, now, I felt listening to this that Huw Watkins just has a wonderful sense of, of orchestration, but also a wonderful sense of writing very vividly for the, the principal and the sections within the orchestra, and particularly in the, the Concerto for Orchestra, which almost becomes a portrait of, of the Hallé.

It's obviously an orchestra and a sound world he knows very well, and obviously has a very strong relationship with, with Sir Mark Elder, who obviously really enjoyed understanding these scores and bringing them, them to life.

It's, um, it's a fabulous record and actually just a, a really fabulous tribute to the sound of the orchestra at the end of Sir Mark Elder's, uh, leadership of it before he handed over to, um, Paiden Wong.

I think actually the symphonic writing, as you say, is-- it's, he has such an amazing sense of the forces of a symphony orchestra, and I, I really got a sense, um, in this symphony that there's something kind of, I don't wanna say film music, but, like, post-film, if that's even a thing.

The way he builds up climaxes is so exciting.

Nilsson's Symphony No. 5, Grieg's Piano Concerto with the soloist Jean-Aflin Bavouzet, and Brahms's Symphony No. 4, all three conducted by Edward Gardner and all three on Shandos.

There was also Delius's A Mass of Life, conducted by Sir Mark Elder, and that's on the Larvo label.

while the excerpt from Grieg's Norwegian Dance No. 1 that you heard during the conversation with Tabitha Bergland was taken from the opening concert of the season.

And speaking of archives, a digital subscription to Gramophone gives you instant online access to our 103-year-old archive of magazines.