Chandos Symphony Orchestra (Nov ’19)

Conductor: Michael Lloyd
Berlioz Overture: Les Francs-Juges
Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 (soloist: Roberto Ruisi)
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique

For the final concert of the 2019 season Chandos is again looking forward to welcoming back another of our previous Young Musician winners. Roberto Ruisi, who is already making a name for himself, will be playing the Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2. Written for a first performance in Spain, there is a real Spanish feel (complete with castanets!) to the finale.

The evening begins and ends, however, with the music of Berlioz. The overture for his early unfinished opera Les Francs Juges is the only main section that he didn’t destroy, and it is the earliest of his compositions still in the repertoire. By contrast the Symphonie Fantastique is one of his best known works. This is music of wild imagination depicting unrequited love, a ball, a rural scene with distant thunder and nightmarish visions of a March to the Scaffold and a Witches Sabbath. A remarkable work, this piece certainly lives up to its name!