The Beethoven Ensemble: Folk Song and Dance

Saturday 29th May 2010, 8pm, Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge

Programme:
Beethoven Violin Concerto – Arisa Fujita, violin
Sibelius Symphony no. 3

Conductor: Daniel Hill

Violin: Arisa Fujita

The final concert in our Cambridge Series is a celebration of folk song, dance and merriment. Beethoven’s Violin Concerto is one of the most soulful and joyful of all the violin concertos (though Sibelius’s is close) – the third movement Rondo erupting in a great dance. Influences from Finnish folk music are discernible in the very first chords of the Sibelius’s Third Symphony. There were also some programmatic notions behind it. In Paris in January 1906, after a period of lively celebrations, Sibelius played three themes to the painter Oscar Parviainen: Funeral March, A Prayer to God and A Great Feast. The Symphony is more classical than his first two, arcing back to a Beethovenian style, both musically and in orchestration.

http://www.beethovenensemble.com/