NOSPR / Antonello Manacorda / Łukasz Frant - NOSPR

Towards the end of 1919, Elgar was no longer ‘fashionable’. The conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra preferred compositions which he found more progressive. When preparing the season’s inaugural concert, he devoted the time allocated to the Cello Concerto to the other works on the programme, thereby condemning the first performance of Elgar’s masterful composition to failure. Despite this, the work remained one of the composer’s favourites. It held its place in the concert repertoire and today moves audiences with its subtle virtuosity, nostalgia and intimate phrases, interpreted by the world’s most outstanding cellists. The premiere of Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony, by contrast, proved a great success, although the composer’s work on this composition came at the cost of an enduring battle which he waged with himself. Dogged by doubt, critical of his own conservativeness and unsure of the formal solutions he had employed, he modified the Symphony twice, only conducting the satisfactory final version six years after the work was conceived.

We play safe! Click and learn more about the public health rules in force during the coming concerts – more

Duration of the concert: approx. 70 minutes