Classical Masterpieces | Mendelssohn | Beethoven | Mozart

Celebrating three giants of the Western art music canon, and tomorrow’s generation of professional musicians, the West Riding Ensemble assumes symphonic proportions for the first time and includes more aspiring young musicians than ever before.

One of the ensemble’s younger members, Maria Nikolaeva, performs Mendelssohn’s beloved Violin Concerto in E minor (1844) – a passionate and lyrical work that draws out the violin’s expressive power.

Complementing the Mendelssohn in the first half of this concert is Beethoven’s fiery overture of 1807, depicting the resolve and war-like nature of Coriolanus, the central character of a play written by Heinrich Collin in 1804.

Mozart’s 40th is one of only two in a minor key of all his 42 symphonies. Completed in 1788, it is a classic representation of the proto-Romantic German literary Sturm und Drang movement, which brought intense emotional feeling and drama to the fore in a rejection of the reason, order, and universal truths of the 17th- and 18th-century Enlightenment.

PROGRAMME

BEETHOVEN: Coriolan Overture, op. 62
MENDELSSOHN: Violin Concerto in E minor, op. 64
MOZART: Symphony 40 in G minor, K550

Maria Nikolaeva | violin David Milsom | conductor