Mendelssohn's Symphonies and Scottish Bagpipes | RIGA FESTIVAL
Once again, we welcome the brilliant, cheerful Estonian maestro Olari Elts, who seems to embody a true Mozartian spirit, to Latvia. This time his original concert programme is dedicated to Scotland and features a performance of bona fide Scottish bagpiper Robert Jordan. There are just a handful of academic compositions whose authors have dared to include bagpipes in their scores. One of these is the magnificent, riotous scenes of a wedding witnessed and written down by the celebrated British composer and conductor Peter Maxwell Davies at the Orkney Islands, north of Great Britain. A very different mood is brought by the young Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy whose sensitive romantic soul was equally dazzled by the extraordinary sea voyage and the spiral staircases of the Queen Mary's castle. Finally, we will enjoy a spectacular summer tableau featuring sparkling orchestral rhythms and broad tonal range conjured up by the Scottish-American nonagenarian composer Thea Musgrave in her work "'The Seasons", celebrated for her mastery of orchestra and little known in Latvia up to now.
Robert Jordan, bagpipes
Sinfonietta Rīga
conductor Olari Elts
Thea Musgrave The Seasons. Summer
Felix Mendelssohn Bartoldi Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 11
Felix Mendelssohn Bartoldi Symphony No. 3 in A minor (“Scottish”), Op. 56
Peter Maxwell Davies “An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise” for orchestra with solo bagpipes