BRITTEN SINFONIA'S TEAM ON THE MUSIC THAT MOVES US

Chris Bell - Learning & Participation Director

Mahler Symphony No 2 in C minor “Resurrection”, V. Finale. 

"This version in particular. The moment at 1:29:08 – 1:30:00 gets me every time. I grew up playing in brass bands and although I enjoyed orchestral music, I had never been moved to tears by a piece. I got a job working for the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and this was the first concert I heard with them, sitting in the Lighthouse Concert Hall in Poole, with my soon to become best friend, Tamsin. There were many tears!"

Nick Brealey - Development Director

The final movement of James MacMillan’s Seven Last Words from the Cross – “Father, into Thy Hands I commend My spirit.”

"I can’t think of any other piece that evokes such strong emotions; despair, resignation, peace, beauty and ultimately hope. I don’t think you have to share MacMillan’s Catholic faith to be mesmerised and affected by this work, but you can’t fail to feel the spirituality and be profoundly moved by it. I first heard Seven Last Words performed by Britten Sinfonia with The Sixteen at the Barbican."

Phoebe Snook - Concerts Assistant

Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy Overture, Tchaikovsky.

"The whole build up from 8:20❤️ I first played this in youth orchestra and sitting in the orchestra made me want to play in orchestras forever"

Test Drive from How To Train Your Dragon, soundtrack by John Powell.

"My fave film ever and this is the highlight, sooo good and I genuinely cry every time I listen to it."

Hannah Williams-Brown - Development and Marketing Assistant

Ambre, TMBM.

"I listened to this non-stop the summer I graduated from university. I was travelling around Edinburgh, France, the Isle of Skye, Berlin & Amsterdam, and all the places I went to are connected in my head through this song. When I hear this, I go straight back to sitting on the isle floor of a hugely overcrowded train somewhere near Nice, with my two friends, all of us feeling hot and dusty and sandy from travelling, but totally serene listening to this song on repeat with the world rushing past us."

Shoël Stadlen - Marketing and Communications Director

"One thing that moves me most about classical music is how pieces can change: you think you understand how something is working, and then it just surprises you, goes to a different level. I’ve noticed I’m often blown away and into another realm by pieces where something that’s already good changes and gets even better. My heart and brain both go “ping” at about the same time.

Often it’s about a process that’s already in place shifting or getting faster or slower. So many amazing pieces do this – like in Bach’s B-flat harpsichord partita, the nice but grounded melody that’s appeared in various stately dance movements suddenly goes wild in the gigue of the last movement. Or in the middle of the second movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, where the slow cello melody is suddenly broken up into much shorter notes, outlining the same notes but taking me into a new and beautiful place. When Michael Finnissy’s super-complex piano texture gradually starts morphing into quotations from Romantic music from the 19th century (The History of Photography in Sound: Alkan-Paganini). And in the third movement of Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint, when the floating, looping electric guitar notes gradually turn into a laid-back groove. Whenever I hear it, it reminds me of being 17 and listening to The Orb’s Little Fluffy Clouds on a compilation mix tape my friend made for me over a long summer break. It wasn’t until a decade later that I realised that the main sample on it was actually by Steve Reich.

Most recently, I had Dobrinka Tabakova’s String Paths album on my shelf for several years before I actually listened to her Cello Concerto, but when I did, I had to have it on repeat about 10 times. In the first movement there are two different layers – an uneasy, fast-moving solo melody, alternating with a low and super-slow strings texture. When they eventually come together at the end of the moment, it’s a really magical moment."

Lauren Hill - Learning and Participation Coordinator

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No.2 - 

"I know now that this is a very well-known piece amongst ‘musical’ people (or at least for anyone who listens to Classic FM occasionally…) but as a teenager discovering it for the first time, I was deeply moved by it. There is something very powerful about the orchestration and the sense of emotion and yearning in the piano part… I used to listen to it on long train journeys around the UK, imagining different paths my future could take."

Grieg Piano Concerto. 

"My music teacher gave me a copy of this when I left school and said she hoped I would play it with an orchestra someday. I haven’t yet, but maybe one day! I think the second movement is underrated but beautiful."

Brahms Piano Quartet no.1 in G minor, first or last movement AND/ OR Dvorak Piano Quartet no.2 in E-Flat, first or last movement.

"The Schubert Ensemble came and played this at the state comprehensive school I attended while growing up in Herefordshire, and music students at my school were given free tickets to one of their concerts at a local chamber music festival: it was my first time hearing live classical music by professionals and it had a profound impact on me."

Rameau, The Arts and The Hours (arr. by Vikingur Olafsson)

"One of my music tutors sent this to us when we were approaching our final degree exams at the onset of the covid pandemic in 2020 in a time of uncertainty and a lot of stress. It is such a beautiful and soothing piece."