Autumn concert with North Wiltshire Orchestra and Lizzie Daniels (violin)

North Wiltshire Orchestra is delighted to be supporting Lizzie Daniels (violin), who joins the orchestra for a performance of Max Bruch's first Violin Concerto. Lizzie is studying the violin with Philip Dukes (viola) and it is wonderful to be able to give such a talented young musician this opportunity.

Bruch's first Violin Concert is perhaps the most well known romantic violin concerto and requires little introduction.

The concert opens with Schumann's Overture to the work Manfred: Dramatic Poem with Music in Three Parts (Op 115). The work, written in 1852, is based on the poem 'Manfred' by Lord Byron. Composer Hugo Wolf wrote that the work "has brought the essence, the focal point of the drama to plastic expression with the simplest strokes. It was written when the composer was suffering from 'inner voices'.

The main work after the interval is Jean Sibelius's Symphony No 5. 2015 is the anniversary celebrating 150 years of the composers birth. The 5th Symphony is certainly one of the composers most well known works. It was commissioned by the Finnish governement in 1915 to celebrate the composer's 50th birthday. The work is in three movements and its origin is fascinating. In a diary entry (April 1915) Sibelius wrote: "In the evening, working on the symphony. This important task which strangely enchants me. As if God the Father had thrown down pieces of a mosaic from the floor of heaven and asked me to work out the pattern."