Event

Magnificent Strings

Orchestra Seattle's March offering celebrates the central role of string instruments in the life of classical music. Singling out the violin and viola, we have asked two of Seattle's most accomplished artists to join us for two very special works, Mendelssohn's violin concerto, described by violinist Joseph Joachim as "the most inward, the heart's jewel" of the German violin concertos, and Vaughan Williams' "Flos campi", a work that is unabashedly sensual and lushly orchestrated, inspired by the Song of Solomon. Also on the program are Stravinsky's "Apollon Musagete" and Tchaikovsky's "Francesca da Rimini". Upon first hearing the gravely beautiful music of the neoclassical ballet, Apollo, Diaghilev found it "somehow not of this world, but from somewhere else above." Tchaikovsky's symphonic poem "Francesca da Rimini" tells the tragic tale of a woman condemned to hell for her adulterous passion, immortalized in Dante's Divine Comedy. In the work, Tchaikovsky expresses a poignant identification with the heroine and her tragic fate.