The Bells - Queensland Youth Symphony

Join us for an afternoon of musical storytelling with Rachmaninov’s favourite work ‘The Bells’ and the world premiere of John Rotar’s Symphony.

Conductor Simon Hewett
Choir Brisbane Chorale
In association with Opera Queensland

John Rotar Symphony No. 1 World Premiere

John Rotar is one of Australia’s most exciting young composers and QYO’s Composer in Residence in 2021. An alumnus of QYS, John began composing this work at the end of 2019 as a personal response to the passing of QYO’s founder John Curro. The traditional four-movement structure combines varied threads of sound from across the breadth of orchestral music, forming a sort of post-post-modern reflection and celebration of the symphony as a genre.

Rachmaninov The Bells

“Silver Sleigh Bells (Allegro ma non tanto)”
“Mellow Wedding Bells (Lento)”
“Loud Alarum Bells (Presto)”
“Mournful Iron Bells (Lento lugubre)”

Rachmaninov’s The Bells shares notable similarities with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 Pathétique, featured in the first QYS concert of 2021. Both were considered by the respective composers as their finest works and both finish with mournful and reflective final movements. Rachmaninov was inspired to compose the choral work when a girl he had never met, who admired the poems of Edgar Allan Poe and Rachmaninov’s music, sent the composer an anonymous letter, urging him to set to music a freely translated version of Poe’s The Bells.