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sinfonia ViVA with Antje Weithaas

Wednesday 28th March 2012 at 7.30pm
Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham
Tickets: £10 to £32
Booking details from the Box Office: 0115 989 5555
Online booking available

Antje Weithaas, Violin

... followed by AFTER:hours late-night concert: 9.40pm - 10.15pm (approx.) in the auditorium. Free admission to main concert bookers. £3 for non-bookers - tickets available on the door only. Programme as follows:

André de Ridder conducts sinfonia ViVA as they reunite with the virtuosic Antje Weithass (violin) and are joined by Nottingham Harmonic Choir with their Musical Director Richard Laing in an evening that combines terrific works by Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, Berg, Whitacre and Handel together with the premiere of an orchestral short commission from accomplished English composer Ian Vine.

The main concert opens with the magnificence and majesty of Handel's Zadok the Priest which was first performed on 11 Oct 1797 at the coronation of King George II in Westminster Abbey, and the success of which began Handel's tenure as composer of works for great public events. Bach's Violin Concerto No.2 in E major was written while he was Kapellmeister in the court of Prince Leopold, a time during which the composer's output flourished. The piece demonstrates the Bach's own skill as a violinist in its intricacy, and it is thought may have been written for the leader of the orchestra in the chapel at Cöthen. Ian Vine's work has been extensively broadcast worldwide, including by the BBC. His new composition premiered tonight, Thirty-Five Objects, marks the conclusion of the successful series of ten orchestral short pieces by contemporary composers specially commissioned by sinfonia ViVA. And finally, to Beethoven and the Symphony No.3 Eroica. One of his greatest compositions, it is believed to have been originally dedicated to Napoleon who Beethoven had, for a time, admired. Subsequently disillusioned by the latter's steps in proclaiming himself Emperor of France, Beethoven somewhat angrily changed his mind over the dedication, erasing the reference to Napoleon from the cover of the score and instead dedicating it as 'Sinfonia eroica, composta per festeggiare il sovvenire d'un grand'uomo (Heroic symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man)'.

Antje Weithaas returns in tonight's AFTER:Hours concert for Berg's Violin Concerto premiered in 1936, the year after his death. It was to be his last work and is the one by which he is best known. It is dedicated "to the memory of an angel": the daughter of Mahler's former wife had recently died from poliomyelitis, and Berg who had an outstanding commission from the violinist Louis Krasner to fulfil (Krasner who would subsequently perform the Violin Concerto's premiere) took this as his inspiration, turning to the task with devotion. In doing so he left unfinished (forever as it turned out) the opera Lulu that he had been working on. Tonight's arrangement of the piece is that by Tarkmann. Also in the late-night programme Nottingham Harmonic Choir with Richard Laing joins André de Ridder and sinfonia ViVA for three further choral works - Bach's Es ist Genug (the melody of which was used by Berg in the Adagio ending to his Violin Concerto), Brahms' 1856 composition Geistliches Lied (Sacred Song) based on the text by Paul Fleming, and Grammy-nominated American composer Eric Whittaker's Lux Aurumque.

Join us for an enthralling combination of pieces played to the highest standard by the region's only professional orchestra, sinfonia ViVA.

Free pre-concert talk with André de Ridder in conversation at 6.30pm in the auditorium.

Supported by sinfonia ViVA and Arts Council England. The AFTER:Hours concert is additionally supported by Orchestras Live.