A concert full of optimism tinged with nostalgia and memories. Stanford’s Sixth Symphony is unquestionably one of his finest works – a profound work full of beautiful melodies and sumptuous orchestration that was composed in tribute to the great Victorian artist and sculptor GF Watts. The first movement is inspired by his famous statue in Hyde Park 'Physical Energy' whilst his paintings 'Love and Life' and 'Love and Death' are core inspirations for the whole symphony. The work, premiered by the LSO in 1907 to great acclaim, was never printed and the manuscript lay neglected for almost a century until the work was recorded by the Ulster Orchestra under the baton of Vernon Handley.
When Edvard Grieg came to give his first concerts in London, he had the world at his feet. As the first composer to transmute the sights and sounds of his own spectacular country into music, he was held to be both prophet and pioneer, and English writers described him as the most popular of all living composers, commenting, when he returned to London the following year, on the 'Grieg fever' that raged in the capital.
Between 1862 and 1906 Grieg spent some six months of his life in this country, for most of the time engaged in giving concerts of his own music as conductor, solo pianist and accompanist. Celebrated by his fellow musicians - among them Delius, Parry, Henry Wood and Grainger - Grieg was befriended by royalty, heaped with honours that included doctoral degrees from Cambridge and Oxford, pleaded in high quarters the cause of Norwegian independence, and found new friends who effected a profound change in his religious outlook. His Piano Concerto is one of his most popular works and features the hugely popular first winner of the Sussex International Piano Competition, Arta Arnicane.