The Glasshouse

Duncan Ward conductor
Lise de la Salle piano
Royal Northern Sinfonia

Copland Music for the Theatre
Barber Serenade for Strings
Martinů Jazz Suite
Milhaud La création du monde
Daniels Deep Forest
Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue (1926 version)

Like a siren, like a skyscraper, the soaring clarinet that opens Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue was the sound that defined a new era in western music. A new world found its musical voice, and from Paris to Prague, European classical music started to dance to the sound of jazz. Duncan Ward takes a journey through the Roaring Twenties, from the Americana of Barber and Copland to the swinging rhythms and vibrant new colours of Milhaud and Martinů. Then that clarinet begins to wail, and pianist Lise de la Salle whirls us away to Manhattan where the mood – unmistakably – is blue.