Commissioned by Jascha Heifetz, Walton’s concerto extended the possibilities of what could be achieved on the violin, while at the same time maintaining a striking intimacy and emotional directness.
Søndergård and the BBC NOW open with a suite from Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s ballet Caroline Mathilde, in which the English princess is sent to an unhappy marriage in Denmark, and continue with two great orchestral works by Sibelius. A painting of a flight of swans hung on the wall of the composer’s study, and these birds inspired both the majestic ‘swan theme’ apotheosis of Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony and the more serene and mystical tone-poem The Swan of Tuonela.
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