FOR THIS SECOND BIRTHDAY CONCERT, GIDON KREMER EXPLORES THREE GENERATIONS OF AMERICAN COMPOSERS, INCLUDING CHARLES IVES, A PIONEERING FIGURE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNIQUELY AMERICAN CLASSICAL MUSIC.

His short piece, The Unanswered Question (1908), unfolds in an almost religious weave of string textures, disrupted by dissonant commentary from the woodwinds. Leonard Bernstein, celebrated for his enduring “hit” musical West Side Story, composed a Serenade for solo violin and orchestra in 1954, painting a musical portrait of the characters in Plato's The Symposium. Bernstein delivers a sharp, pulsating score of a thousand dazzling colours, far from the traditional ethereal image of the serenade. At 88 years of age, Philip Glass is the elder statesman of American music, one of the world’s most celebrated symphonic composers whose Violin Concerto No. 2 The American Four Seasons, incorporating the harpsichord, is a sparkling nod to Vivaldi.

PROGRAMME DÉTAILLÉ

• Charles Ives (1874-1954)
  An Unanswered Question
   
• Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
  Serenade for Solo Violin and Orchestra
   
• Philip Glass (1937)
  Violin Concerto No. 2 The American Four Seasons