Classical Music - Lewes Concert Orchestra

In Victorian times the equivalent of the film score was the incidental music commissioned by playwrights for their plays. Very occasionally the music became more successful than the play, and this has certainly been the case with Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite no. 1, the highlight of this night of works performed by the Lewes Concert Orchestra. Peer Gynt was the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s most fantastic play, which bears little relation to the dark realistic works that later made him into an international star. Written in verse, it charts the adventures of a picaresque traveller who roams the world unable to cast off the hereditary roguishness inflicted upon him by his father’s genes. It was a difficult play - one scene was played out in complete darkness - and Grieg soon realised that his music would outlive its potential theatrical run, and re-orchestrated 23 movements into eight, divided into two suites, of which this is the first. The music has become an all time classic; the play, meanwhile, has enjoyed a number of revivals over the years, and was once made into a movie, starring a 17-year-old Charlton Heston in the title role.

The Lewes Concert Orchestra, which performs three annual concerts in Lewes, is mainly composed of gifted amateurs but contains a number of principals with international experience, and is conducted by Adrian Shephard MBE. Other works performed tonight include Rossini’s La Cenerentola Overture, Faure’s Elegy, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and Sibelius’ La Valse Triste. AG