Russian violinist Sergej Krylov is this evening’s soloist for Sibelius’s Violin Concerto. ‘Dreamt I was 12 years old and a virtuoso.’ So the 50-year-old Sibelius noted, wistfully, in his diary in 1915. Sibelius began his musical career with high hopes of becoming a concert violinist. When destiny forged another path for him, he expressed his relationship with his instrument through this, his only concerto; premiered in 1904, it is a work that combines intense virtuosity with profound depths of expression.
We also hear Brahms’s tempestuous First Symphony – completed by the composer aged forty-three, despite having been started some twenty years earlier. Initially dubbed as ‘Beethoven’s Tenth’ by critics – the work turned out to be something a lot more poetic and personal.
The Prelude to Act I of Lohengrin opens tonight’s programme and was Wagner’s first internationally recognized masterpiece.
Free pre-concert talk at 6.45pm by Judy Blezzard.
The concert will be finished by approximately 9.25pm.
