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Francois-Xavier Roth and SWR Symphony Orchestra triumph at the Proms

François-Xavier Roth brought the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden & Freiburg to its first BBC Proms concert in a programme of Boulez, Ligeti and Bartók.

Excellent reviews from ArtsDeskThe TimesBachTrack and The Guardian

Turning classical rules of development on their head, Boulez’s ‘… explosante-fixe …’ , originally conceived as a memorial to Stravinsky, works backwards, moving from its most complex material to its primary, original source. It’s audacious and completely compelling.

The whole classical canon seems dissolved in Ligeti’s Lontano in which familiar harmonies and styles are suspended in space and time, and resolution continually hangs just out of reach. Sections of the work were used in Stanley Kubrick's film, The Shining.

Bartók wasn’t the first composer to write a Concerto for Orchestra, but freewheeling virtuosity and rhythmic energy set this one apart. Treating individual instruments as soloists or partners in exhilarating "duets-to-the-death", Bartók reinvents the orchestra itself.