Friday 2 November 2012, 8pm, National Concert Hall
RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra 2012-2013 Season: Main Season
SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE AND LOSS
Arvo Pärt Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten [6’]
Frank Corcoran Violin Concerto (world premiere) [17’]
Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27 [60’]
Alan Smale violin
Christopher Warren-Green conductor
RTÉ NSO LEADER ALAN SMALE GIVES THE FIRST PERFORMANCE of Frank Corcoran’s ‘taut, lean, lyrical, leppin’’ and song-like Violin Concerto that combines, the composer says, ‘fiddling fun, violinistic seriousness and art’s sorrow, and fast, furious, last orchestral thoughts’. Estonian Arvo Pärt’s bewitching, prayer-like elegy for Britten is a haunting recognition of a lost kindred spirit, and Rachmaninov’s swooningly beautiful Second Symphony could have no better champion than the dynamic conductor Christopher Warren-Green.
Soundings, 7pm
In Conversation
Conductor Colman Pearce with Irish composer Frank Corcoran