Mendelssohn / Britten / Elgar

Sir Edward Elgar laid the foundations for a new tradition of music-making in the British Isles. Influenced by Sir Charles Stanford and encouraged by the interest of Richard Strauss, Elgar produced several works of major importance, including the Enigma Variations. The theme is said to have originated in spontaneous music-making at the piano - the composer certainly had no idea at the time what fame this relatively simple melody would bring him. The fourteen variations of the theme are marked with initials representing the composer's friends and acquaintances. The individual variations are therefore characterised by great contrasts in key, tempo, character and length. Other important British composers include Benjamin Britten. The Expressionist Violin Concerto was written while Britten was living in the USA, and is his first major opus. It was composed in the period before the outbreak of the Second World War, which certainly influenced the composer's language. Along with the Bartók, Berg, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Szymanowski concertos, it is one of the icons of violin literature of the first half of the 20th century. The solo part will be played by the young, twenty-five-year-old Chinese violinist Ziyu He. He made his debut at the Musikverein in Vienna at the age of seventeen, and will make his debut here during a pair of concerts in December. After some time, the former chief conductor of the Slovak Philharmonic James Judd will also stand in front of the Bratislava audience.