Season opening: Edward Elgar and Pyotr Tchaikovsky

Kirill Petrenko launches the new season with two works that are both sumptuous and rhapsodic. Beneath their radiant surfaces, however, lie hidden messages.  Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations are built not only on a deeply expressive theme, but also on encoded musical portraits of friends and family members. Pyotr Tchaikovsky, meanwhile, threads his Symphony No. 4 with a “fate motif” – a musical allusion to the life crises that accompanied him during the composition of the work. While there are moments of brightness, they are overshadowed by the spectre of impending misfortune.

Programme

Edward Elgar
Enigma Variations, op. 36

Interval

Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 4 in F minor, op. 36