The Salomon Orchestra Past Concerts

Tuesday 11th October 2005 at St John's Smith Square

Conductor Mark Forkgen

Violin Thomas Gould

Wagner Prelude to Die Meistersinger

Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto

Sibelius Symphony No.1

Wagner's Prelude to Die Meistersinger was completed 5 years before the comic drama. Wagner fused melodies from the Meistersinger period with contrapuntal writing (to refute Eduard Hanslick’s comment that he couldn’t do it) and incorporated the main elements of the coming drama, starting and finishing in a clear and ultimately triumphant C major.

Thomas Gould

Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto had a difficult start. Leopold Auer, for whom the work was intended, called it unplayable and it languished for nearly 4 years. When it was first performed with a poorly-prepared orchestra, the use of Cossack idioms contributed to Eduard Hanslick’s comments: ‘soon vulgarity gains the upper hand…The violin is no longer played: it is pulled, torn, drubbed. The adagio is on its best behaviour…But it soon breaks off to make way for a finale that transfers us to a brutal and wretched jollity of a Russian holiday.’ Auer later championed the work for his students, and needless to say it is now one of the most popular pieces in the repertoire.

Click the photo for a short biography of Thomas Gould.

Sibelius’ Symphony No. 1 was completed in 1899, the same year as Finlandia, and though it shows the influence of Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony, which was performed in Helsinki 2 years before, it has the same recognisable Finnish sound as the Karelia music. Richly romantic, it also demonstrates the organic growth which was to be perfected through Sibelius' symphonic cycle.

©Salomon Orchestra

2006

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