THE GREAT CONCERTOS: SIBELIUS’S VIOLIN CONCERTO Ulster Hall Friday 1 December 2017, 7.45pm
Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis Sibelius Violin Concerto Dvořák Symphony No.7 Jac van Steen Conductor Esther Yoo Violin Before he turned to composition, Sibelius had attempted to carve out a career as a violinist. He never truly left his first love behind and his concerto for violin is the only one he ever wrote. It puts the virtuosity required for performing the work upfront and centre stage in the first movement’s cadenza, and the virtuoso to perform the work is rising star, Esther Yoo. “Sibelius’s Violin Concerto in D minor, with BBC New Generation Artist Esther Yoo as the soloist was equally stunning. Yoo’s solo passages were bewitching, as she played her cadenza in the middle of the first movement with such a huge and intricate amount of detail it was almost hard to conceive the sounds were coming from just one instrument...” (Herald Scotland) The Violin Concerto is paired with arguably Dvořák’s greatest symphony, his Seventh, and it’s a work which particularly inspired Sibelius in the writing of his Violin Concerto. It’s packed full of references to his Czech homeland and brim-full of Slavonic melodies.
Free pre-concert talk with Jac van Steen at 7pm.
ULSTER ORCHESTRA SEASON PROGRAMME 2017/2018
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