Philzuid

'O, redirect your steps, in the valley spring has sprung...' read the lines of poetry that inspired Schumann. In just four January days in 1841, he sketched the outlines of his Spring Symphony. 'As if I was overcome by a sudden urge for spring,' Schumann later explained.

That urge for spring could very well be the motto of this concert. Cupid's arrows in Rameau's magical eighteenth-century sounds thaw everyone's heart. In his moving First Violin Concerto, Béla Bartók paints a portrait of his childhood sweetheart Steffi. A love that blossomed during long spring walks across the countryside, broke down and became an obsession. So much heartbreaking melancholy in one violin. Lovely to play, finds soloist Liya Petrova, who the Sunday Times described as having: 'a beautiful sound, ripe and silvery with a majestic expanse.'