Antonio Pappano leads the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Elgar's Symphony No. 1, preceded by Beethoven's epic Violin Concerto featuring Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider.
About this concert
The Danish violinist Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider is a welcome guest soloist with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. This time, he climbs the very heights of the violin repertoire with the Beethoven Violin Concerto, a work which remains unrivalled. No violinist could sidestep such a work, and the flood of melodies always sweeps the listener along. Unlike his predecessors Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven also gave the orchestra quite a lot to do in this concerto: in fact, the entire work is one intense dialogue between the soloist and orchestra.
Although an autodidact and originally something of an outsider, Edward Elgar would become the figurehead of English music. His Symphony No. 1 had thus been eagerly awaited, and Elgar exceeded every expectation. According to the conductor Hans Richter, the Adagio could have been composed by Beethoven himself. Following the premiere, one newspaper reviewer hit the nail on the head: ‘The composer has written a work of rare beauty, sensibility, and humanity, a work understandable of all.’
‘The composer has written a work of rare beauty, sensibility, and humanity, a work understandable of all.’
