Journey into the ancient world of Roman Legends, an unforgettable evening of spectacular orchestral music inspired by the drama, grandeur and mythology of Rome.
Berlioz's sparkling Roman Carnival Overture opens the concert in dazzling style,
overflowing with irresistible energy, brilliant orchestral colour and festive excitement.
At the heart of the programme is Respighi's magnificent Roman Festivals, performed in the centenary year of its 1928 premiere. One of the twentieth century's greatest orchestral masterpieces, it brings ancient Rome vividly to life through scenes of gladiatorial combat, sacred ceremonies, jubilant celebrations and triumphant pageantry.
Written for a vast orchestra, its breathtaking colours and thrilling climaxes make it one of the most spectacular works ever composed.
The evening concludes with Khachaturian's unforgettable music from Spartacus, the story of the legendary gladiator whose courage and fight for freedom have inspired generations. From the haunting beauty of the famous Adagio to its sweeping drama and heroic power, it provides a magnificent finale to this epic musical journey.
Join SCO for Roman Legends, a concert celebrating the myths, heroes and splendour of the ancient world through some of the most exhilarating orchestral music ever written.
Romsey Abbey, Romsey
Saturday 15th July 2028 - 7:30pm
Ticket Prices: TBC
The Programme
Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture dates from 1844, drawn from material originally written for his opera Benvenuto Cellini, itself set during the Roman carnival season. The opera had been a failure at its premiere, but Berlioz salvaged its finest ideas and fashioned this concert overture, which has gone on to enjoy far greater popularity than the work it came from.
The overture opens with a whirl of orchestral colour before settling into a long, yearning cor anglais melody, one of Berlioz's most beautiful inventions, tender and full of Italian warmth. This calm is short-lived: the tempo suddenly quickens, and the music tumbles headlong into the riotous energy of carnival itself, all glittering strings, chattering woodwind and exuberant brass. Berlioz weaves the lyrical theme back into the whirlwind, so that romance and revelry chase one another right through to a dazzling, breathless close.
It is a masterstroke of orchestration and pacing, a few minutes that distil the sights and sounds of Rome at its most festive. Where Kabalevsky's overture bubbles with mischief, Berlioz's sparkles with a very particular kind of Mediterranean abandon, sensuous one moment, exhilarating the next.
Roman Festivals (Feste Romane) is the third and most extrovert panel in Respighi's great triptych of Roman tone poems, following Fountains of Rome and Pines of Rome. Composed in 1928, it is scored for a vast orchestra and depicts four scenes of festival life across Roman history, from ancient spectacle to the composer's own era.
The work opens with Circenses, a brutal, brass-driven depiction of gladiators facing wild beasts in the Colosseum, savage and unrelenting. Il Giubileo follows, a hushed procession of pilgrims toiling toward Rome that swells into a great outpouring of religious fervour as the Holy City comes into view. L'Ottobrata paints a gentler scene, an October harvest festival full of horn calls, mandolin serenades and warm evening colour, before the work erupts into La Befana, a riotous depiction of a New Year's Eve festival in the Piazza Navona, crowded, chaotic and dazzlingly loud.
Respighi's orchestration is at its most virtuosic and uninhibited here, pushing the orchestra to extremes of volume and colour rarely attempted before. It is a work of tremendous physical excitement, a sonic panorama of Rome across the centuries, ending not in quiet reflection but in an overwhelming blaze of orchestral sound.
Khachaturian's ballet Spartacus, composed in 1954, tells the story of the Thracian gladiator who led a slave uprising against Rome, and its score ranks among the most vivid and memorable written for the ballet stage. Drawing on his Armenian heritage, Khachaturian fused lush, sweeping melody with the propulsive rhythms and rich orchestral colour that define his mature style.
The ballet's most famous music, the Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia, is a love theme of overwhelming tenderness and yearning, its long melodic lines rising and falling with an almost aching intensity, music that has taken on a life far beyond the ballet itself. Elsewhere, the score bristles with drama and spectacle: driving, percussive rhythms accompany scenes of battle and defiance, while passages of swaggering, theatrical grandeur capture the pomp of Roman power that Spartacus dares to defy.
Throughout, Khachaturian balances raw physical energy with genuine emotional depth, the clash of armies and the intimacy of love existing side by side. It is a score built for the stage but equally thrilling in the concert hall, music that captures both the struggle for freedom and the humanity of those caught up in it.