Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux
plays Mendelssohn's violin concerto.
 

The Isle of Ely Festival

Ely Cathedral

Saturday 25th June 2022

Mendelssohn

Overture: "The Hebrides"

Violin Concerto 

Symphony No.4, "Italian"

Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux, violin
Suffolk Philharmonic Orchestra
Leslie Olive, conductor

Leslie Olive introduces this music:

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BASALT COLUMNS AND ATLANTIC SWELL

I confess I am in love with this all-Mendelssohn programme! I was once again on a boat standing off Fingal’s Cave on the southern cliff of the Scottish island of Staffa this last summer, and there is a particular feel and look to the ocean swell as it reached the Hebrides which Mendelssohn captures perfectly in his wonderful Hebrides Overture – also known as “Fingal’s Cave.” The music takes us on a journey through calm swells to something much more challenging and back again. At the end it seems as though we have sailed away, and the island disappears in the distance.

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INTRODUCING CHARLOTTE

The wonderful young French violinist Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux plays the same composer’s Violin Concerto, surely one of the most extraordinary and compelling works in an extraordinary and compelling category of composition. Charlotte was a prize-winner at the 2021 International Auditions for the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT), with whom I and Suffolk Philharmonic have worked for many years as part of our commitment to providing opportunities for the most outstanding solo performers of the younger generation.

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FROM SCOTTISH ISLANDS to ITALIAN SUNSHINE

Mendelssohn was a keen traveller, and his fourth and last symphony – the “Italian” – is just as genuinely coloured with the sunshine and swirling colours of Italian peasant dancing as the Hebrides Overture is redolent of sea spray and the crash of the waves on the basalt columns of Staffa. The movements are all glorious, from the sun-drenched opening, through the musical impression of a religious procession in Naples in the slow movement, and the fiery Saltarello and Tarantella dances of the finale – the Tarantella being the legendary frenzied dance in which a victim of a tarantula sting dances himself to death.

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Come and enjoy this wonderful programme with the SPO In the numinous and inspiring surroundings of Ely Cathedral at the height of summer.

Generously sponsored by 

"..within reach of everyone in Suffolk.."

In association with

The Lark's Flight over Suffolk is supported by:

With additional support from:

Ralph Vaughan Williams 150th Anniversary Celebrations

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St Edmundsbury Cathedral

Saturday 15th October 2022

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Vaughan Williams

Symphony No.1: A Sea Symphony

Symphony No.2: A "London" Symphony

Suffolk Philharmonic Orchestra

Leslie Olive, conductor