Melbourne Symphony Orchestra: Schumann and Mendelssohn – Abundant Spring

This program evokes the abundance of springtime – featuring new beginnings, new life, and a new work by Cybec Young Composer in Residence Melissa Douglas.

Schumann wrote his Spring Symphony during the depths of a dark German winter as a pastoral homage to different aspects of the season. We hear its wondrous emergence out of snowy bleakness, the special atmosphere of a springtime evening, ‘merry playmates’, and nature in full bloom at the height of its glory.

Known for her expressive, atmospheric ability to transport the listener to other worlds, young Australian composer Melissa Douglas’s music has been performed across the world by the BBC Singers, PLEXUS, and Polaris Duo to name a few.

At the time of its composition, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto was considered an innovative reinvention of the genre in the way it foregrounded the solo violin. Esther Yoo makes her mark on this sparkling, turbulent, and floridly virtuosic work – described in 1906 by violinist Joseph Joachim as ‘the heart’s jewel’ of violin concertos.