This concert opens with the world premiere of Dubai-based British composer Joanna Marsh’s Flare.
Premiered by the 29-year-old composer in 1785, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20is one of his most sublime masterpieces, full of drama, passion and surprises.
In his concert overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage Mendelssohn took inspiration from two poems by Goethe to vividy depict the journey of a boat that moves from an eerie stillness, through rising winds, leading to its ultimately safe arrival in port.
Edward Elgar’s first great orchestral success, Variations on an Original Theme (‘Enigma’), is full of virtuosic orchestral writing, combining wit and poignancy (not least in the glorious ‘Nimrod’ variation) as the composer depicts his ‘friends pictured within’. The ‘Enigma’ Variations – so called because Elgar never identified the theme on which the work is based – has remained one of the composer’s most beloved and frequently performed works.
