Some of the finest music of the 20th century died in the mud of the Western Front. We’ll never know what music George Butterworth and Cecil Coles might have written – but in the month in which the nation re, Martyn Brabbins conducts the first performances of two works they almost completed; each charged with a unique emotional power. Two established British favourites offer a contrasting vision of what might have been: Elgar’s warm-hearted musical portrait album of his “friends pictured within”, and Walton’s sun-kissed Mediterranean daydream of a Cello Concerto, performed tonight by the exceptional young German virtuoso Nicolas Altstaedt.
Prelude: 6.45pm in the Recital Room
Kate Kennedy, author of The First World War: literature, music, memory introduces the concert.
Post-concert Coda
(approximately 10 minutes after the main concert)
Nicolas Altstaedt performs Britten’s Cello Suite No.3.
