Poetic Songs

Poetry is put to music with the QSO's evening of Poetic Songs, an exquisite concert featuring award-winning vocalist Katherine Broderick.

Poetry has a way of moving us deeply with its beautifully arranged melody of words and phrases, expressing life’s deepest mysteries and desires. But when poetry is put to music, as with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra’s presentation of Poetic Songs, the effect is twice as powerful: we receive a powerful message on all levels.

The QSO will be playing three pieces: Johannes Brahms’s Variations on a Theme of Joseph Haydn, Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, and Bela Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra. Conductor Elvind Aadland will lead them, and soprano Katherine Broderick will be featured as the vocalist.

Each piece is lovely in its own unique way. Brahms wrote his Variations in 1873 as a way of reinterpreting Chorale St. Antoni, which he thought contained a wind ensemble piece attributed to Haydn. It wasn’t the case, but Brahms’s name for his variation stuck.

Bartok composed in the 19th and 20th centuries, but his Concerto for Orchestra is distinctly classical in nature. Although listeners will recognize the sonata-allegro form in the first and fifth movements, they’ll also be able to hear Bartok’s experimentation through non-traditional modes, invented scales, and thrilling fugato finale.

If you’re a fan of vocal orchestral music, then Broderick singing Strauss’s Four Last Songs will be the true treat of the evening. The text demands a soprano who can handle the soaring melodies while still retaining her own strength and emotionality, as the four songs deal with death and acceptance – and are sung against a full orchestra.

And with Broderick, the 2007 winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Award, and Elvind Aadland taking the helm, there’s no doubt Poetic Songs will be one of the highlights of the QSO season.

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