Sergei Prokofiev was on the cusp of returning to the Soviet Union when he wrote his Second Violin Concerto. Its anxious, butterflies-in-the-stomach quality moves from a dark and unsettled beginning, through a radiant, elegant second movement, and ends in a blaze of musical fireworks. It demands virtuoso insight and technique, something our soloist Rosanne Philippens (who played 'The Lark Ascending last season') has in spades. The 'New Yorker' has praised the 鈥榚xtraordinary power and intensity鈥� of Lera Auerbach鈥檚 music and her homage to Mozart opens the second half of this concert. But to begin, some spiky neo-classicism from the great Gra偶yna Bacewicz, and to end, we cut through the January gloom with the most exuberant and life-affirming of Schubert鈥檚 symphonies.
This concerts ends at approximately 3:45pm.