Accent on Youth Concert
An amazing concert of contrasting works with the solo violin at its lyrical best.
Dance, the solo Violin at its lyrical best, pathos and ebullient symphonic composition; this concert of contrasts has it all!
Dazzling violinist Lizzie Dawson provides us with our youthful focus tonight. She is joining the orchestra to play the stunning Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.
This piece holds a central place in the violin repertoire and having developed a reputation as an essential concerto for all aspiring concert violinists to master, it is usually one of the first Romantic era concertos they learn. It is a firm favourite with performers, orchestras and concert goers alike.
Bartók had an interest in folk music for most of his life, and a lot of his works turn around it including his “Romanian Folk Dances” with which we open our concert. This suite of 6 pieces is based on tunes originally played on either the fiddle or the shepherd’s flute and whilst it was first composed for piano, this work was orchestrated by Bartók himself. It combines simple tuneful melodies with Bartók’s unique percussive pulsating style and whilst Bartók rarely used key signatures we are using the 1971 edition which does include them!
Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings is full of pathos and cathartic passion and has been described as the saddest music in the classical repertoire. It is an intense and deeply moving piece which was composed during the mid ’30s — a time of great fear. It is this sense of sadness and of impending doom that infuses the music. More complex than it sounds, the music has been featured in many TV and movie soundtracks and was played at Albert Einstein’s funeral and immediately following the announcement of the death of JFK.
Our Accent on Youth theme continues in our concluding piece, Schubert’s 3rd Symphony, which he wrote a few months after his 18th birthday. In contrast to Barber’s work this is a piece full of the positivity and energy of youth which can be seen from his tempi. Following the usual slow introduction to the first movement, we have Allegro con Brio, then Allegretto; followed by Menuetto and Vivace and finally a galloping Presto. Influenced by Rossini this symphony will send you home with the sense of the joys of spring.
Come and join us for an amazing evening of music.
Performers
Sheffield Chamber Orchestra (Lizzie Dawson - Violin) and Neil Aston - Conductor
Programme
- Bartok: Romanian Folk Dances
- Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto
- Barber: Adagio for Strings
- Schubert: Symphony No 3
