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 Dutch soloist Rosanne Philippens 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.
The Austrian-Spanish conductor is Associate Conductor of Welsh National Opera.