Experience the signature sound of two great Romantics and Brett Dean’s violin concerto, The Lost Art of Letter Writing.
In 2009 Brett Dean’s violin concerto won the Grawemeyer Award – a kind of Nobel prize for composers – and we’re thrilled to be presenting its Sydney premiere with the soloist for whom it was written, Frank Peter Zimmermann.
“Brett has a very human way of writing music,” says conductor Jonathan Nott, “it has a soul to it, an expressive line, fantastic colours, and he invites you to enjoy the sound.”
The concerto has a story, too. Each of its four movements is prefaced by a letter: Brahms to Clara Schumann, Vincent van Gogh, the composer Hugo Wolf, and Ned Kelly’s famous Jerilderie letter. And the music mirrors the intensity of love (with a quote from Brahms’s Fourth), the pain of an artist, waltz-like decadence and the bushranger’s defiance.
Building the program around this powerful heart, Jonathan Nott has chosen a “symphony in miniature” to prepare the way for the concerto, and the expansive singing lines and heavenly length of Schubert’s final symphony.
This concert brings together three composers who break the mould in different ways and it unites a contemporary Australian voice with the German Romantic tradition that has shaped his style.
BRAHMS Tragic Overture
DEAN The Lost Art of Letter Writing – Violin Concerto SYDNEY PREMIERE
SCHUBERT Symphony No.9 (Great C Major)
Jonathan Nott conductor
Frank Peter Zimmermann violin
Pre-concert talk by Robert Murray in the Northern Foyer, 45 minutes before each performance
AUDIO PLAYER LISTING
Track 1 – BRAHMS Tragic Overture: Opening
L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande conducted by Ernest Ansermet
DECCA ELOQUENCE 480 0448
Track 2 – SCHUBERT Symphony No.9 (Great C Major): 1st movement (opening)
Track 3 – SCHUBERT Symphony No.9 (Great C Major): 3rd movement (opening)
Track 4 – SCHUBERT Symphony No.9 (Great C Major): 4th movement (opening)
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by George Solti
DECCA 460 311-2
Audio kindly supplied by Universal Music.