Philharmonia Orchestra

BCEX & Bedford Borough Council presents
Philharmonia Orchestra

Vladimir Ashkenazy conductor

James Ehnes violin

ELGAR Violin Concerto

BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 6, Pastoral

Elgar’s epic Violin Concerto was composed for the celebrated Viennese virtuoso Fritz Kreisler, who shortly before giving the 1910 world première in London vowed “I will shake the Queen’s Hall!” He obviously had the desired effect as according to one reviewer, “for a quarter of an hour they called and recalled the man [Elgar] who had achieved a triumph not only for himself, but also for England, and hailed him as master and hero.” Elgar’s own opinion was that “It’s good! Awfully emotional! Too emotional...but I love it.” Beethoven’s passion was for the countryside. “You ask me where my ideas come from” he once noted, “they come to me in the open air, in the woods, while walking, in the silence of the night, early in the morning”. The Pastoral Symphony, with its unambiguously bucolic movement titles, is the composer’s attempt to set these sounds and scenes in notes on paper.

“the wondrous James Ehnes…a thinker of the violin as well as a supreme virtuoso of the instrument”

Daily Telegraph, January 2012

Click here to see an online interactive brochure