BRAHMS Violin Concerto
TCHAIKOVSKY Manfred Symphony in B minor, Op. 58
The splendour of late Romanticism forms the axis of this programme in which Brahms and Tchaikovsky come together. In the first half, Brahms’s Violin Concerto draws us into the most intimate realm of the German composer’s imagination. Written in 1878 in close collaboration with Joseph Joachim (who contributed to certain technical passages, including its celebrated cadenza), the Concerto departs from the virtuoso display typical of many solo works of the period. Instead, it explores the instrument’s most lyrical, expressive, and symphonic possibilities, weaving soloist and orchestra into a truly co-equal partnership.
The second half turns sharply with Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony, a work with which the composer maintained an ambivalent relationship, at times calling it his finest creation and at others wishing to destroy it. Based on Lord Byron’s celebrated dramatic poem, which captivated thinkers and composers alike with its supernatural and phantasmagorical themes, the Symphony embodies the archetype of the tormented Romantic hero. Through a large orchestral forces that includes organ at its climax, Tchaikovsky traces Manfred’s psychological journey: a path moving between the sombre and the fantastical, driven by a profound sense of guilt following the loss of his beloved, and culminating in a devastating vision of death and final redemption.
