The Young Musician Showcase Concert

Outstanding Chandos Young Musician Competition winner Caroline Pether follows in some famous footsteps with a performance of Sir William Walton’s Violin Concerto. Composed in 1939 it was almost lost in a raid during WWII as their house had been - in Lady Walton’s words - bombed flat. And despite Heifitz’s bowing copy being lost during an Atlantic crossing, the concerto survived and is cherished as one of the finest in the repertory. The Violin Concerto is a declaration of love and this governs the mood of this great work in which pyrotechnical demands on the soloist are reconciled with music of ultimate poetical expressiveness. The programme is complemented by Vaughan Williams’ incidental theatre music, The Wasps; and Dvoràk’s tone poem, the Noonday Witch - the story of a witch called up to make a naughty boy behave, but it all ends in tears. Finally, the glorious music of the first act of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Ballet features a party, a battle and lots of snow. The curious Uncle Drosselmeyer gives Clara a gift at the family Christmas party of a toy nutcracker. That night it comes to life and all manner of magical events are depicted in this amazing and best-loved score. After the Overture and the March, which do feature in the well known Suite, we pick up from the end of the party and play to the end of Act 1, some of the best music in the score and seldom heard other than at a performance of the whole ballet.