Bayleys Great Classics: On the Danube

Conductor Giordano Bellincampi
Violin Benjamin Morrison

J. Strauss II On the Beautiful Blue Danube
Korngold Violin Concerto
Mahler Blumine
Brahms Symphony No.3

This concert shows Vienna at the hinge of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Strauss’s waltzes are so familiar that it’s easy to overlook their golden, autumnal elegance. It’s also easy to forget that Brahms, a friend and admirer of Strauss, is the other side of the coin. His tempestuous Third Symphony is the high summer of Romanticism. Mahler’s lyrical Blumine was originally intended for his First Symphony, but he cut it, and it was rediscovered years after he died.

Benjamin Morrison, the sole Kiwi member of the Vienna Philharmonic, makes his debut with the APO for Korngold’s utterly glorious Violin Concerto. Profoundly romantic, it looks back to a vanished world.