Music for a Summer Evening

Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony is a miraculous work, peppered with countless musical innovations, sleights of hand, form, harmony and invention. We can marvel at each moment of genius, but it’s not why we love the piece so much. We love the exuberance, elan and sheer energy of this affectionate portrait of Italy and its people, playing against Mendelssohn’s great sadness at the deaths of three close friends – he produced a life-affirming masterpiece.

The great Finnish master Sibelius is unsurpassed at conjuring atmosphere and feeling out of seemingly nothing. His Suite Pelléas et Mélisande carries great weight and meaning, creating an entire world of brooding tragedy - yet at the same time it is slight and beautiful.

Completing our Summer evening, Vaughan Williams “The Lark Ascending” offers us a pastoral idyll; a devotional poem to nature, the English countryside and its folk song, another work exploring great heights even at the edge of silence. Annmarie McDade is our glorious avian explorer.