Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra: Online Concert Programme | Thu 2 Oct 2025

Dani Howard (b.1993): The Butterfly Effect

The Butterfly Effect was commissioned by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra to mark its centenary celebrations, and received its premiere on 14 June 2023, conducted by Kazuki Yamada, at Symphony Hall, Birmingham. The commission was generously supported by Chris Oakley and Steven Christie as part of the CBSO Centenary Commissions.

The composer writes that The Butterfly Effect was ‘defined by the idea that a small action can have larger implications on a more complex system. The concept is imagined with a butterfly flapping its wings in one location, causing a hurricane elsewhere. Having contemplated this idea for some time prior to writing the piece, and upon noticing that the rest of the concert (music by Britten and Elgar, the former an alumnus of the Royal College, and the latter its one-time President), I reflected on the impact of my single decision to study at the Royal College of Music, onto every other part of my life, professionally and personally.

‘It was upon hearing a performance of Joseph Horovitz’s Clarinet Sonatina performed by Andrew Simon and Warren Lee as a teenager (of which you may hear quotations within the piece), and later meeting the wonderful composer and professor of the RCM, to whom my piece is dedicated, that was certainly one of the most influential moments in my life, affecting so much that followed. The work begins with a small and simple idea, heard by the violas and clarinet, that gradually expands and lengthens, pushing itself forward to create an almost “chain reaction”, into a much larger finale.’

The performance of The Butterfly Effect is supported by Resonate, a PRS Foundation initiative in partnership with Association of British Orchestras and BBC Radio 3.

Composer Profile: Dani Howard

Still only in her early thirties, over the past decade Dani Howard has established her name in the UK and internationally with a series of impressive, vibrant works. Performances and commissions have come thick and fast from orchestras like the BSO, LSO, CBSO, BBC NOW and the BBC SO, the Royal Liverpool and Royal Philharmonic orchestras, and as well as from Classic FM and the Royal Philharmonic Society. Abroad, performances have been given, for instance, by the Swedish Royal Stockholm and Gävle SOs, and the Finnish Kuopio SO.

Conductors of her music include Mark Wigglesworth, Chloé Van Soeterstède, Domingo Hindoyan, Vasily Petrenko, Dalia Stasevska, Kazuki Yamada, Elim Chan and Sofi Jeannin. Her talents have been recognised by several awards, notably the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize. She has been resident composer with the London Chamber Orchestra, and resident artist with the National Youth Orchestra, which included writing a large-scale work for the Proms with some 260 performers. She now launches the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s new ‘Celebrated Composer’ initiative.

Born in Hong Kong in 1993, Dani spent her childhood and teenage years there before studying composition at the Royal College of Music with Jonathan Cole and gaining a first-class degree. A breakthrough orchestral work was Argentum (2017), composed for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, which subsequently led to a close relationship between Dani and the orchestra including the commissioning and premiering of Coalescence (2019) and her Trombone Concerto (2021), written for former BBC Young Musician of the Year, Peter Moore. Indeed, Dani relishes composing works with particular artists in mind which has continued with a Percussion Concerto for Evelyn Glennie (2024), and Saxophone Concerto (2023-4) for Jess Gillam (its UK premiere being given by the BSO, conducted by Mark Wigglesworth this November). There’s also a solo percussion piece, Vasa (2025) for Colin Currie, Continuum (2024) for trumpeter Matilda Lloyd, and You Don’t Have to Tell me Twice (2024) for guitarist Jack Hancher.

Other orchestral works of this outstanding decade include another work featured as part of Dani’s residency with the BSO – The Butterfly Effect (2022). These years when Dani’s reputation has been steadily growing also witnessed her flair for opera with two commissions from The Opera Story: Robin Hood (2019) premiered in Peckham, and The Yellow Wallpaper (2023), first performed at the Copenhagen Opera Festival and subsequently at Sadler’s Wells Theatre. Both operas garnered glowing reviews hailing her instinctive dramatic gifts for the genre. Among her choral works is Unbound (2012), commissioned and composed for The Marian Consort, who also recorded it.

Another characteristic of Dani’s work as a composer is a desire to collaborate with artists of other disciplines which resulted in her working with dancers, film-makers and architects. An example is her 2021 sound-installation, which still stands as an hour-long soundtrack and audio-guide in Barcelona’s Casa Batlló. Through her music, she comments, ‘I aimed to transmit the beauty Anton Gaudi created in the different rooms of his Casa Batlló building’. The score was recorded by members of the Berlin Philharmonic, Berlin Radio SO, Deutsch Opera, Berlin, conducted by Pablo Urbina.

Looking ahead, Dani is currently composing a Cello Concerto, titled Maverick, for Richard Bamping and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. Bamping, the orchestra’s principal cello, taught her the instrument from the age of 10, and became an important mentor to her during her teenage years. Creating this new work for him is, she explains, ‘an exceptionally special project, since it explores the idea of mentorship, as well as finding your own sense of identity’. Maverick receives its premiere in Hong Kong in May 2026, by Richard Bamping, conducted by Michael Sanderling. Before then, Connaught Brass premiere her new brass Quintet (2025) on 24 September this year at Music @ Malling, Kent.

Back in July, Dani’s previous work for brass quintet, Quartz (2025), was premiered by Onyx Brass at JAM on the Marsh Festival, Kent, and another recent chamber work, Unraveled (2025) for piano trio, commissioned by the Presteigne Festival and Music in the Round, received its premiere by the Leonore Trio in August at the Presteigne Festival. Two other of her extant works were also performed at the festival, Symmetry (2016) for two violins and Add Oil (2022) for solo cello.

Much more can be found out about Dani’s music via her website – www.danihoward.com – and in addition, a perfect introduction to her orchestral works is her calling card first orchestral album by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic released on the RUBICON label last year which includes the Trombone Concerto, Argentum and Coalescence. In her notes for the disc, she explains that after an initial daunting fear, ‘I absolutely fell in love with writing for orchestra and, in particular, large orchestral performances. No other combination of instruments can give you the scope and possibilities for exploring new textures and sound worlds, and this I find so exciting and limitless.’

© Andrew Burn

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943): Piano Concerto No. 1

1. Moderato
2. Andante ma non troppo
3. Allegro vivace

During the 1890s Rachmaninov became a celebrated figure in Russian musical life. His first opera, Aleko, was staged at the Bolshoi Theatre when he was just 20 years old, and other compositions built upon this early triumph.

The Piano Concerto in F sharp minor – Rachmaninov’s first orchestral composition, and his opus 1 – was introduced at a students’ concert held at the Moscow Conservatoire in 1892. Since he was prodigiously gifted as a pianist, the composer himself was the soloist, and from the time of the creation of the music he had always intended this to be so.

Rachmaninov was then aged nineteen, and the conductor was the formidable Vassili Safonov, the Director of the Conservatoire. Although both the music and the performance received a favourable reception, in the longer-term Rachmaninov himself was far from satisfied with the concerto. In due course he subjected the score to detailed revision, several years after he had composed his Second and Third concertos. In fact, this project proved to be the last creative enterprise he undertook during 1917, prior to leaving Russia forever.

The impressive opening gesture confirms the sources of Rachmaninov’s musical inheritance. The fanfares recall the ‘Fate’ music which permeates the Fourth Symphony of Tchaikovsky, while the cascading double-octaves in the piano part, plunging from the top to the bottom of the keyboard, owe a good deal to the famous concertos of Grieg, Schumann and Tchaikovsky. However, when a potent, memorably flowing melody takes centre stage, the music could be the work of no composer other than Rachmaninov. This splendid theme is initially presented by the violins, rising impressively before subsiding downwards, as if expressing exhaustion. The cadenza is placed in the Classical fashion towards the end of the movement and makes a strong impression. There is full toned sonority and dazzling virtuosity too, reaching to a climactic ending with a full presentation of the great theme.

The slow movement is altogether less strenuous, and in the context of the more relaxed atmosphere there are some fine opportunities for the wind instruments. For example, a distinctive horn solo establishes the mood, the context into which the soloist introduces the principal theme. The piano is beautifully surrounded, as ever with this composer, in a web of subtle harmony.

The lively finale, played at tempo Allegro vivace, is in many respects the most distinctively Russian music in the concerto. The orchestra opens with a powerful gesture, before the soloist takes over with a dazzling display of virtuosity. At the centre of the movement there is a return to the indulgence of romantic lyricism, before Rachmaninov returns to the main agenda, to ensure a vigorous conclusion.

© Terry Barfoot

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Symphony No. 10

1. Moderato
2. Allegro
2. Allegretto
3. Andante – Allegro

Many people consider Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony to be his greatest work. It is certainly the one in which musical expression and political meaning are at their most balanced and intertwined.

Published after the death of Stalin in 1953, Shostakovich took advantage of a relative thaw in political oppression to describe what it was like to live under such dictatorship. But though fear, isolation, loss, anger, and sorrow are all vividly portrayed, ultimately this work stands as a testament to the courage and humanity of those who refused to submit to the tyranny of their time. The symphony was first performed on 17 December 1953, by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Yevgeny Mravinsky.

The Second World War had provided the Soviet people with relative respite from Stalin’s domestic purges. But with Hitler gone, the Russian dictator re-focussed his energies on oppressing opposition at home. People kept cushions over their telephones in case they were bugged. Every acquaintance was a possible informer and Stalin declared there was no nobler act than denouncing a friend. It was not long before the arts came under attack. The Minister for Culture proclaimed contemporary music was ‘like a dentist’s drill’. Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony was described as ‘repulsive and ultra-individualist’. The composer became a non-person. People smashed his windows.

The Tenth Symphony’s first movement is a huge, arching waltz that builds to a climax as inevitably as it recedes from it. It is an unforgettable journey that, despite seemingly ending where it began, has travelled an enormous distance. It expresses a lonely and drained quality that reflects the poet Anna Akhmatova’s line: ‘How sad that there is no one else to lose, and one can weep’.

Shostakovich portrays Stalin’s brutality in the breathtaking second movement. It begins fortissimo and is followed by no fewer than 50 crescendos. There are only two diminuendos. The effect is self-explanatory.

The third movement is another waltz, this time mysterious and macabre. It is based on a theme made up from the first four letters of the composer’s own initial and surname. When the letters D.SCH are turned into German musical notation, they spell the notes D-E flat-C-B. But this ‘signature’ doesn’t get Shostakovich anywhere. The music keeps falling back on itself and there seems no way out until it stumbles, as if by chance, upon an initially enigmatic horn call. This five-note tune appears no less than 12 times and bears a striking resemblance to the opening fanfare of Mahler’s The Song of the Earth. The message of that profoundly optimistic work would have struck a chord with Shostakovich. Despite the horrors, life itself is beautiful and will always be so however man attempts to ruin it.

Another possible meaning for this theme is that it ‘spells’ the name of a student of Shostakovich’s, Elmira Nazirova. He had become infatuated with her and sent her numerous letters during the summer of 1953. Maybe both ‘translations’ are relevant. Whether eternal nature or human love, the horn call symbolises an alternative to tyranny. Nevertheless, the horn call remains isolated and the D.SCH waltz becomes increasingly desperate. Apparently, the writer Gogol would stare into a mirror and, in mad self- contemplation, repeatedly call out his own name. There is something of this mania here.

Over and over again the D.SCH motif is frantically repeated. At its hysterical climax, the eternal love theme returns, this time blazing out on all four horns. Yes, love is the answer. But the realisation has come late, and the final horn call sounds a long way away.

The finale opens in a Siberian landscape with solitary woodwind voices singing to each other across barren Gulags. It is the slowest music of the symphony, a reminder of the desolation prisoners were actually experiencing. At home though, life goes on, and the ensuing Allegro depicts the humdrum existence of those trying to avoid their own deportation. The symphony is not sure which is worse. At least prisoners were allowed to cry.

Stalin’s purges made virtually everyone an accomplice, a snowball gathering all in its path. As the somewhat gossipy bassoon begins the finale’s coda, it is joined one by one by everybody else. Galloping alongside is the evil rhythm of the second movement – making it clear that Stalin is the one pushing the snowball down the hill. The horns and timpani fight back, hammering out the D.SCH motif. I will not be beaten, Shostakovich shouts. The resilience is remarkable. His spirit pours forth, if not in triumph, then at least in a determination to stand tall against the totalitarian ambitions of those in power. It is an inspiration to us all.

© Mark Wigglesworth