Elgar One
Location: Basingstoke
Date: 07-03-2013
Time: 19:45
Venue Details: The Anvil
Works Performed
- Bridge : Enter Spring
- Saint-Saëns : Cello Concerto No.1
- Elgar : Symphony No.1
Performers
- Conductor : David Hill
- Soloist: Jesper Svedberg (Cello)
Enter Spring, completed in 1927, is the last and greatest of Bridge’s tone poems. Sounds of the approach of spring are heard from the flute, a muted trumpet and then a solo violin. The music grows in complexity and intensity, as the progress of spring marches on, reaching a moment of triumphant grandeur before fading to move into a final section of reminiscence and tranquility.
The first of two concertos for cello was premiered in 1873 when Saint-Saëns was at the height of his compositional powers. Much loved and now firmly part of the concert repertoire, it is a brilliant tour de force, melding ground-breaking structural innovation with exquisite solo writing. While the piece falls in three main parts, the various themes are ingeniously combined into one continuous movement, beginning dark and reflective, developing themes in increasingly dramatic interchanges between soloist and orchestra right up to the brilliant ending.
Click here to watch a video of soloist Jesper Svedberg previewing Saint-Saëns' Cello Concerto No.1
When Elgar’s First Symphony was introduced in Manchester in December 1908, it was immediately hailed as a long-awaited landmark - as England’s First Symphony in effect - a true masterpiece. The premiere was a triumph. After the conclusion of the adagio, the audience’s response was so enthusiastic that, prior to launching the finale, conductor Hans Richter summoned Elgar to the stage for a bow. The following year, the symphony received more than eighty performances throughout Europe and Australia. It begins with a broad, noble theme which binds the work together, recurring at intervals throughout the four movements before eventually emerging as a triumphant march at the very end.
This concert is part of a wider series, The Virtuoso Cello, which celebrates the instrument's magnificence and diversity.
