BBC Philharmonic: Sibelius Symphony No. 5

The beauty, terror, and joy of nature

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
John Storgårds conductor
James McVinnie organ

Richard Wagner Lohengrin: Prelude to Act I
Gabriella Smith Breathing Forests, Concerto for Organ and Orchestra
Jean Sibelius Symphony No. 5

The music of American composer Gabriella Smith is indelibly linked to nature, marvelling at its beauty, terror and joy.

In Breathing Forests, her exquisite new organ concerto, Smith draws on those same feelings of awe and angst to describe the life of a forest in music. A Californian who grew up among the constant threat of wildfires, Smith understands this particularly volatile natural resource. This is music that breathes, grows, and burns.

Surrounding Smith’s forest are two pieces linked by a single animal. In Wagner’s opera Lohengrin, the title character is sent in a swan-drawn boat to rescue a maiden. Sibelius too found inspiration in swans, writing in his diary about a skein of swans in flight inspiring the climax of his Fifth Symphony. Both composers find a majestic tone, especially in Sibelius’s final movement, containing one of the greatest moments in all symphonic music.