KZN Philharmonic Orchestra World Symphony Series Early Spring Season Concert 1

ABOUT

7 PM THURSDAY 24 AUGUST 2023

Programme

Glinka Valse-Fantaisie

Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, Op. 64 in e minor

Schubert Symphony No. 8 D. 759 in b minor, “Unfinished”

Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Nocturne & Scherzo)

Dutch maestro Arjan Tien makes a welcome return to the KZN Philharmonic podium to open the season with a programme of music by Glinka, Mendelssohn, and Schubert. Glinka’s originally composed his Valse-Fantaisie for piano in 1839, creating its orchestral version six years later, when it premièred in Paris under the baton of Hector Berlioz. A revised version followed in 1856 with additional melodic lines characterised by alternating melancholic and passionate phrases.

Felix Mendelssohn’s iconic e minor Violin Concerto offers a superb showcase to introduce the renowned French violinist Fanny Clamagirand, winner of a string of prestigious international competitions, to Durban concertgoers. The last of the composer’s violin concertos, the work premièred in Leipzig in 1845 with Mendelssohn on the podium, and his friend and muse, the great virtuoso Ferdinand David as the soloist. It went on to become one of the most widely performed and recorded of all concertos. Schubert started composing his spellbinding Eighth

Symphony, dubbed “the Unfinished”, on October 22, 1822. He completed only two movements. And then, to the bafflement of posterity, he abandoned his miraculous composition.

Alfred Einstein declared, “Schubert could never have finished the work, for nothing could approach the originality, power, and skill of the first two movements.” And yet, this wonderful fragment had to wait four decades before

Johann von Herbeck conducted the first performance in 1865, for Vienna’s Friends of Music Society.

Mendelssohn wrote his incidental music to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1846, sixteen years after composing its magnificent Overture. The work’s heavenly Nocturne, with its diaphanously shifting tones, followed by the spritely Scherzo offer an exquisite end to the evening’s programme that is sure to send the audience home in a heady mood of euphoria.

Please note that this performance will be filmed. By entering the event, you are entering an area where photography, audio and video recording may occur.

DIRECTIONS