NOSPR / Lawrence Foster / Plamena Mangova - NOSPR

The Symphony No. 1 by the sixteen-year-old Schubert was written towards the end of his time at the Piarist-run boarding school where his teachers included Antonio Salieri. Despite the effort it took Mendelssohn to write the Piano Concerto No. 2, it has been seen as a somewhat slight contribution to the repertoire. The composer Robert Schumann, writing in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, offered a frank assessment of the piece. Elgar composed his Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36, popularly known as the Enigma Variations, between October 1898 and February 1899. It is an orchestral work comprising fourteen variations on an original theme. Elgar dedicated the work "to my friends pictured within", each variation being a musical sketch of one of his circle of close acquaintances

Duration of the concert (including break): approx. 110 minutes