NSOI: Daniel Müller-Schott plays Elgar Cello Concerto

National Symphony Orchestra Ireland
Anna Rakitina conductor 
Daniel Müller-Schott cello

Jessie Montgomery Overture (Irish premiere)
Elgar Cello Concerto
Sibelius Symphony No. 7
Grieg Peer Gynt Suite No. 1
 
Renowned for its poignant, introspective character, Elgar’s Cello Concerto, was the composer’s final major orchestral work, composed in the aftermath of the First World War and when the composer was in ill health. Blending lyrical warmth with quiet anguish and disillusionment, this is music of extraordinary emotional depth which will be brough to life by German cellist Daniel Müller-Schott as soloist, praised for his “intense expressivity” and “bold, fiery technique” (The New York Times).

The concerto’s enduring fame owes much to Jacqueline du Pré, whose 1965 recording with Sir John Barbirolli and the London Symphony Orchestra remains legendary. (Barbirolli, a regular visitor to Ireland during his lifetime was influential in advocating for a ‘proper concert hall in Dublin’, an ambition realised in 1981 with the opening of the National Concert Hall.)

The programme also features American composer, Jessie Montgomery’s Overture, which she describes as “a one-movement orchestral tutti steeped in harmonic textures inspired by a fusion between jazz and American classical harmonies, Baroque rhythmic gestures, and polyphonic tension”. Audiences will also be treated to Sibelius’s final symphony, his Seventh; a “one-movement marvel” (Classical FM) lasting around twenty minutes, it stands as an orchestral triumph, unfolding a musical drama of truly epic proportions and serving as a “tribute to the huge emotional power of Sibelius’s music” (The Guardian). This is followed by Grieg’s evocative and melodic Peer Gynt, which, altogether highlights the orchestra’s rich ex-pressive range under the baton of Anna Rakitina. 

Presented by NCH