| BBC Symphony Orchestra | |
| Sakari Oramo | Direction |
| Jennifer Koh | Violon |
A yearning melancholy binds the music of Elgar and Butterworth in tonight’s programme, echoed in a beguiling new violin concerto from young British composer Anna Clyne.
George Butterworth died at the Somme in 1916 and will forever be remembered by his Housemann settings, A Shropshire Lad, from which he derived this bittersweet orchestral rhapsody. Together with Elgar’s restless second symphony, which he described his as ‘a passionate pilgrimage of the soul,’ the works compliment and contrast each other immensely. Dynamic violinist Jennifer Koh made her name as a composer’s muse, and this co-commission with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra of The Seamstress was written for her. She performs it here in its UK premiere under chief conductor Sakari Oramo, whose strong affinity for English music promises a concert of arresting emotion.
