Winter Concert 2023
We’re delighted to welcome Artur Haftman as our guest soloist for our November concert, performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.4.
The full programme will be:
- The Wasps Overture, Vaughan-Williams
- Piano Concerto No.4, Beethoven
- Symphony No.2, Sibelius
YouTube
- The Wasps Overture, Ralph Vaughan-Williams - The Wasps Overture, performed by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner
- Piano Concerto No.4, Ludwig van Beethoven - Performed by Helene Grimaud with the Orchestre de Paris
- Symphony No.2, Jean Sibelius - Performed by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra
Programme Notes
The Wasps Overture, Ralph Vaughan Williams
Written in 1909 as incidental music to the triennial Cambridge Greek Play performance of Aristophanes’ ancient Greek comedy, The Wasps, first performed in 422BC. This is quintessential Vaughan Williams music, rooted in his study and love of English folk music.
Piano Concerto No.4 in G, Op.58, Ludwig von Beethoven
One of Beethoven’s most loved and best known pieces, along with the Fifth symphony, or the Pastoral, or his Violin Concerto. The first movement is long, (at 18 minutes, it counts for more than half of the whole concerto) and features an astonishing cadenza towards the end. The second lasts under 5 minutes and is referred to as “a tight knot of despair” before the energy and fluidity of the vivace rondo of the third and final movement.
Symphony No.2 in D, Jean Sibelius
The first performance of a Sibelius symphony by HSO since March 2014 (Symphony No.1). Packed full of memorable themes, from the very opening of the first movement (highlighting the strings but backed up by woodwind and horns), through a lament on bassoon in the second, described as “an old man singing.” The third movement alternates between the high energy vivacissimo and a much slower lento e suave, before the grand finale of the fourth movement. The symphony is a deliberate expression of Finnish patriotism and independence, written as it was, at a time of Russian sanctions on Finnish language and culture.