The New Zealand Herald Premier Series: Enduring Spirit

Conductor: Giordano Bellincampi
Violin: Natalia Lomeiko

Kodály: Dances of Galánta
Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No.2
Nielsen: Symphony No.4 ‘The Inextinguishable’

Kodály takes a nostalgic trip to his boyhood in the Slovakian town of Galánta. Based on traditional Hungarian tunes, this sparkling piece lovingly evokes the village bands of Kodály’s earliest memories.

Hints of reminiscence, too, in Shostakovich’s Second Violin Concerto. Shostakovich wrote it for his friend, the great David Oistrakh, and alluded to traditional music from Oistrakh’s childhood in Odessa. Natalia Lomeiko returns to New Zealand and the APO to perform this intense work.

Continuing his survey of Nielsen’s music, Giordano Bellincampi reaches the Fourth Symphony. It’s best described by its composer: ‘One word to indicate what music alone is capable of expressing to the full, music is life, and like it, inextinguishable.’