Join the BSO on Tuesday 26 September as the Orchestra brings its world-class symphonic music to Yeovil with a programme of Mendelssohn, Mozart and Beethoven, as part of The Octagon Theatre Classical Concert Season. The BSO’s Leverhulme Young Conductor in Association, Victor Aviat, will be joined by violinist Alexander Janiczek for a performance of Mozart’s Fifth Violin Concerto. This most popular of all the composer’s violin concertos will be brought to life by a soloist described as “spellbinding” by The Guardian. Janiczek works in all the different roles available to a violinist – as director, soloist, chamber musician and professor – and has directed all of the notable chamber orchestras in Europe. A former Associate Artist with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Janiczek continues to direct the ensemble on a regular basis and his recent performance of Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.4with the SCO was “full of natural sparkle and purity of tone” in a review by The Scotsman.
Mozart’s Fifth Violin Concerto is his longest as well as most adventurous and original concerto for the instrument. Its popularity has ensured it is one of Mozart’s earliest works to remain a permanent fixture in the concert repertoire and the piece’s finale, with its thrilling interlude musically evoking the land of the Ottoman Empire, led to it being referred to as the ‘Turkish’ Violin Concerto. Written when Mozart was just nineteen, this concerto is the last of five written in Saltzburg for performance at the Court. The first four concertos follow a conventional form with three movements in fast-slow-fast order and make use of returning melodic material; however with this fifth concerto, Mozart began to experiment. The first movement begins with the customary orchestral exposition but the character of the music is changed completely by the entrance of the solo violin with a slow, singing melody.
The concert opens with Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, an atmospheric and vivid musical portrait of the remote Fingal’s Cave on the Scottish island of Staffa. Mendelssohn was inspired by the windswept landscape of the tiny island and its remarkable cave formed from hexagonally jointed basalt columns whilst on a tour of Europe. The stormy seas are vividly depicted in the opening motif which recurs over colourful, changing harmonies, constantly shifting like the rolling waves at the entrance to the cave and the piece is all the more remarkable considering Mendelssohn began composition of it when aged just 20. It is a fine example of Romantic musical tone-painting and described by Wagner as the “masterpiece” of a “landscape painter of the first order.”
Beethoven’s revolutionary Symphony No.3 ‘Eroica’ is as famous for the story surrounding its name as it is for its sheer scope and size. The composer had long been an admirer of Napoleon and decided to dedicate a work to him, capturing the heroic nature of his idol; however when news reached Beethoven that Napoleon had declared himself Emperor of France, Beethoven was so furious that he tore the title page from the manuscript and re-named it the Eroica Symphony, or the ‘Heroic Symphony.’ The work was longer, more forcefully complex and less emotionally comfortable than anything audiences had heard before in 1805 in Vienna and represented a shocking upheaval in the world of music. Following the composition of this masterpiece, Beethoven was never again simply a composer, but the creator of monuments. There will be another chance to hear more from this greatest of composers at the BSO’s ‘Beethoven Bonanza’, taking place at Bournemouth Pavilion on Saturday 14 October, with Chief Conductor Kirill Karabits and 2017 Horowitz International Piano Competition winner Jun-Hee Kim; for more details visit BSOlive.com.
Event: Revolutionary Hero Concert with Alexander Janiczek
Venue: The Octagon Theatre, Hendford, Yeovil, Somerset BA20 1UX
Date: Tuesday 26 September 2017
Time: 7.30pm
Ticket Prices: £30 (concessions available; a £1 ticket levy is included in all prices)
To Buy Tickets: Tickets go on general sale on Wednesday 6 September. Please visit BSOlive.com or call or visit The Octagon Theatre Box Office on 01935 422884
