The final concert of our season is an evening of Eastern European inspired music:
Dvorak - Cello Concerto
Soloist: Jacob Shaw
Bartok - Concerto for Orchestra
Dvorak’s stunningly beautiful Cello Concerto is full of joyous themes inspired by his Czech homeland. It is his last solo concertoand was written in 1894 for his friend, the cellist Hanuš Wihan, but was premiered in London 2 years later by the English cellist Leo Stern.
Bartok’s virtuoso orchestral showpiece is one of his best-known, most popular, and most accessible works. Bartók said that he called the piece a concerto rather than a symphony because of the way each section of instruments is treated in a soloistic and virtuosic way. It combines Western music with Hungarian folk melodies in a spectacular conclusion to the season.