"A trickle of youth": Schumann's phrase about Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream has not aged a day. And then we have the Elgar's Concerto, entrusted to the bow of Frank Peter Zimmermann, where magic is met by mystery…
"A trickle of youth": Schumann's phrase about Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream has not aged a day. And then we have the Elgar's Concerto, entrusted to the bow of Frank Peter Zimmermann, where magic is met by mystery…
What Jean Sibelius is to Finland, Edward Elgar is to England: both composers gave their country its own national musical language. With his Lemminkäinen Suite, Sibelius transports us to the world of Finnish legends. He tells of the adventures of a young, high-spirited hero in music that is as impassioned as it is sincere. Edward Elgar’s violin concerto reflects the values of Victorian England – profound, romantic, noble. The violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann, widely acclaimed for his selfless musicality, performs the concerto under the direction of Kirill Petrenko.
What Jean Sibelius is to Finland, Edward Elgar is to England: both composers gave their country its own national musical language. With his Lemminkäinen Suite, Sibelius transports us to the world of Finnish legends. He tells of the adventures of a young, high-spirited hero in music that is as impassioned as it is sincere. Edward Elgar’s violin concerto reflects the values of Victorian England – profound, romantic, noble. The violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann, widely acclaimed for his selfless musicality, performs the concerto under the direction of Kirill Petrenko.
What Jean Sibelius is to Finland, Edward Elgar is to England: both composers gave their country its own national musical language. With his Lemminkäinen Suite, Sibelius transports us to the world of Finnish legends. He tells of the adventures of a young, high-spirited hero in music that is as impassioned as it is sincere. Edward Elgar’s violin concerto reflects the values of Victorian England – profound, romantic, noble. The violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann, widely acclaimed for his selfless musicality, performs the concerto under the direction of Kirill Petrenko.
Anyone who has ever danced the Viennese Waltz will know that an air of royal-imperial grandeur and stylistic elegance is not the only sensation that overcomes you. A profound sense of dizziness and centrifugal force are part of the deal. What in the beginning seems cheerful and buoyant quickly turns into sensual frenzy, much like a spinning top gone crazy. There is no piece that shows these two aspects of waltzing in such a poignant and Viennese way as Ravel’s La Valse, so much so that even the famous impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who had commissioned the work, felt it was a bit over the top for his ballet company. But Ravel’s orchestral dance is so mesmerizing, so colourful and rhythmically bizarre that it is easy to visualize the frenzy on an imaginary dancefloor: »You can see a huge hall with countless people spinning in circles,« said the composer about La Valse. In less than 14 minutes, the illusive bliss of waltzing turns into apocalyptic ecstasy. A piece that eventually did fulfill its purpose as ballet music is Albert Roussel’s Bacchus et Ariadne, music to the ancient Greek myth – beautiful, almost fragrant sounds which the Frenchman and Ravel-contemporary later distilled into two suites for orchestra. Seduction, enchantment, orgiastic celebrations intoxicated with love, these substances are better enjoyed on a purely musical level. Bacchus, whose full-time occupation as God of wine-making rarely leaves him without a motley entourage of party guests, snatches the mortal Ariadne who was stood up by her ex-lover Theseus on the island of Naxos. Bacchus, aka Dionysus, and his Ariadne celebrate a triumphant Bacchanal together which Albert Roussel sets as sweeping, dazzling party for orchestra. From Ariadne to Alice: Edward Elgar was in need of a muse when he started to work on his violin concerto. Conveniently, she had the same name as the wife. »My work has me burning & I am composing like mad. You should come & see it (& hear it).« Having started out as a violinist, Elgar knew the instrument like the back of his hand. Surely, that is one reason why his opus 43 shows the perfect balance between the soloist and the orchestra. Star violinist Fritz Kreisler had commissioned this luscious, opulent work: a mosaic of countless ideas and melodies, a stream of yearning thoughts, led by the violin and painted in a variety of nuanced colours by the orchestra. Together, they indulge in an ecstatic final movement, including what might be the most touching solo cadenza ever. Thanks to our soloist, the world-famous violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann, the enormous technical difficulties fade away in the light of the musical rush of emotions. »Herein is enshrined the soul of..…,« Edward Elgar, prone to the enigma, wrote in the score. Five dots – perhaps they stand for the name Alice. But if yes, then which?
Anyone who has ever danced the Viennese Waltz will know that an air of royal-imperial grandeur and stylistic elegance is not the only sensation that overcomes you. A profound sense of dizziness and centrifugal force are part of the deal. What in the beginning seems cheerful and buoyant quickly turns into sensual frenzy, much like a spinning top gone crazy. There is no piece that shows these two aspects of waltzing in such a poignant and Viennese way as Ravel’s La Valse, so much so that even the famous impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who had commissioned the work, felt it was a bit over the top for his ballet company. But Ravel’s orchestral dance is so mesmerizing, so colourful and rhythmically bizarre that it is easy to visualize the frenzy on an imaginary dancefloor: »You can see a huge hall with countless people spinning in circles,« said the composer about La Valse. In less than 14 minutes, the illusive bliss of waltzing turns into apocalyptic ecstasy. A piece that eventually did fulfill its purpose as ballet music is Albert Roussel’s Bacchus et Ariadne, music to the ancient Greek myth – beautiful, almost fragrant sounds which the Frenchman and Ravel-contemporary later distilled into two suites for orchestra. Seduction, enchantment, orgiastic celebrations intoxicated with love, these substances are better enjoyed on a purely musical level. Bacchus, whose full-time occupation as God of wine-making rarely leaves him without a motley entourage of party guests, snatches the mortal Ariadne who was stood up by her ex-lover Theseus on the island of Naxos. Bacchus, aka Dionysus, and his Ariadne celebrate a triumphant Bacchanal together which Albert Roussel sets as sweeping, dazzling party for orchestra. From Ariadne to Alice: Edward Elgar was in need of a muse when he started to work on his violin concerto. Conveniently, she had the same name as the wife. »My work has me burning & I am composing like mad. You should come & see it (& hear it).« Having started out as a violinist, Elgar knew the instrument like the back of his hand. Surely, that is one reason why his opus 43 shows the perfect balance between the soloist and the orchestra. Star violinist Fritz Kreisler had commissioned this luscious, opulent work: a mosaic of countless ideas and melodies, a stream of yearning thoughts, led by the violin and painted in a variety of nuanced colours by the orchestra. Together, they indulge in an ecstatic final movement, including what might be the most touching solo cadenza ever. Thanks to our soloist, the world-famous violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann, the enormous technical difficulties fade away in the light of the musical rush of emotions. »Herein is enshrined the soul of..…,« Edward Elgar, prone to the enigma, wrote in the score. Five dots – perhaps they stand for the name Alice. But if yes, then which?
Anyone who has ever danced the Viennese Waltz will know that an air of royal-imperial grandeur and stylistic elegance is not the only sensation that overcomes you. A profound sense of dizziness and centrifugal force are part of the deal. What in the beginning seems cheerful and buoyant quickly turns into sensual frenzy, much like a spinning top gone crazy. There is no piece that shows these two aspects of waltzing in such a poignant and Viennese way as Ravel’s La Valse, so much so that even the famous impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who had commissioned the work, felt it was a bit over the top for his ballet company. But Ravel’s orchestral dance is so mesmerizing, so colourful and rhythmically bizarre that it is easy to visualize the frenzy on an imaginary dancefloor: »You can see a huge hall with countless people spinning in circles,« said the composer about La Valse. In less than 14 minutes, the illusive bliss of waltzing turns into apocalyptic ecstasy. A piece that eventually did fulfill its purpose as ballet music is Albert Roussel’s Bacchus et Ariadne, music to the ancient Greek myth – beautiful, almost fragrant sounds which the Frenchman and Ravel-contemporary later distilled into two suites for orchestra. Seduction, enchantment, orgiastic celebrations intoxicated with love, these substances are better enjoyed on a purely musical level. Bacchus, whose full-time occupation as God of wine-making rarely leaves him without a motley entourage of party guests, snatches the mortal Ariadne who was stood up by her ex-lover Theseus on the island of Naxos. Bacchus, aka Dionysus, and his Ariadne celebrate a triumphant Bacchanal together which Albert Roussel sets as sweeping, dazzling party for orchestra. From Ariadne to Alice: Edward Elgar was in need of a muse when he started to work on his violin concerto. Conveniently, she had the same name as the wife. »My work has me burning & I am composing like mad. You should come & see it (& hear it).« Having started out as a violinist, Elgar knew the instrument like the back of his hand. Surely, that is one reason why his opus 43 shows the perfect balance between the soloist and the orchestra. Star violinist Fritz Kreisler had commissioned this luscious, opulent work: a mosaic of countless ideas and melodies, a stream of yearning thoughts, led by the violin and painted in a variety of nuanced colours by the orchestra. Together, they indulge in an ecstatic final movement, including what might be the most touching solo cadenza ever. Thanks to our soloist, the world-famous violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann, the enormous technical difficulties fade away in the light of the musical rush of emotions. »Herein is enshrined the soul of..…,« Edward Elgar, prone to the enigma, wrote in the score. Five dots – perhaps they stand for the name Alice. But if yes, then which?
»If you want to know who I consider to be the most important living composer, I say without hesitation: Elgar... I put him on the same level as my idols Beethoven and Brahms.« This is how the violin virtuoso Fritz Kreisler enthused about Edward Elgar in 1905 – and added a personal request: »I wish Elgar would compose something for the violin.« The flattered man was happy to fulfil this wish. Albeit with a few years’ delay. Edward Elgar completed his violin concerto in 1910. The piece was tailor-made for Fritz Kreisler: Elgar placed an extremely demanding solo part in his hands. The sheer abundance of virtuosic cascades and furiously fast arpeggios are such a great challenge that many soloists avoid them. Frank Peter Zimmermann, on the other hand, has taken it on several times and performed the fifty-minute mammoth work with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, for example. In February 2025, he will join the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra to savour the rapturous glow and late Romantic colours of the concerto under the direction of Andris Poga.
»If you want to know who I consider to be the most important living composer, I say without hesitation: Elgar... I put him on the same level as my idols Beethoven and Brahms.« This is how the violin virtuoso Fritz Kreisler enthused about Edward Elgar in 1905 – and added a personal request: »I wish Elgar would compose something for the violin.« The flattered man was happy to fulfil this wish. Albeit with a few years’ delay. Edward Elgar completed his violin concerto in 1910. The piece was tailor-made for Fritz Kreisler: Elgar placed an extremely demanding solo part in his hands. The sheer abundance of virtuosic cascades and furiously fast arpeggios are such a great challenge that many soloists avoid them. Frank Peter Zimmermann, on the other hand, has taken it on several times and performed the fifty-minute mammoth work with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, for example. In February 2025, he will join the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra to savour the rapturous glow and late Romantic colours of the concerto under the direction of Andris Poga.
Brahms' Third Symphony, premiered in 1884, is his shortest and focuses on depth. Hans von Bülow liked it so much he played it twice in one concert. Elgar's Violin Concerto, inspired by Fritz Kreisler's praise, took four years to compose. Its premiere shook Queen's Hall, and a year later, Arthur Nikisch led another impactful performance at the Gewandhaus.
Brahms' Third Symphony, premiered in 1884, is his shortest and focuses on depth. Hans von Bülow liked it so much he played it twice in one concert. Elgar's Violin Concerto, inspired by Fritz Kreisler's praise, took four years to compose. Its premiere shook Queen's Hall, and a year later, Arthur Nikisch led another impactful performance at the Gewandhaus.
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