Egmont in October

Mount Egmont

Mount Egmont – also known as Taranaki – stands in New Zealand as one of the most majestic volcanic cones in the world at 2518 metres (8261 ft).

Beethoven’s equally majestic Egmont Overture opens Firebird’s 2018/19 Season in truly monumental form on 9 October at St George’s Hanover Square.

  • Beethoven: Egmont Op. 34
  • Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1
  • Dvorak: Song to the Moon
  • Dvorak: Symphony No. 8 in G major, Op. 88, B. 163
  • George Jackson conductor
  • Leonard Schreiber violin
  • Verity Wingate soprano

Beethoven’s Egmont actually has nothing to do with Mount Egmont but is a set of pieces from 1787 based on a play by Goethe. The subject is the life and heroism of 16th-century nobleman Lamoral, Count of Egmont.

33 year-old Belgian violinist Leonard Schreiber will be the star of the show with Bruch’s beautiful Violin Concerto. Dating from 1886 this is considered to be one of the most popular concertos ever composed.

Dvorak’s Song to the Moon comes from the very beginning of his opera Rusalka in which the lead character – as a nymph – sings to the moon…

O moon high up in the deep, deep sky,

Your light sees far away regions,

You travel round the wide,

Wide world peering into human dwellings

Rusalka

Dvořák’s cheery and lyrical 8th Symphony draws its inspiration more from the Bohemian folk music that Dvořák loved. 

The score was composed on the occasion of his admission to Prague Academy and dedicated To the Bohemian Academy of Emperor Franz Joseph for the Encouragement of Arts and Literature, in thanks for my election.

Dates for your Diary

Opening Concert of the 2018/19 Season

Tuesday 9 October 2018
St George’s Hanover Square, London

Firebird Returns to Oxford

Sunday 10 February 2019
St John-the-Evangelist, Oxford

Generously sponsored by the Morris-Venables Charitable Foundation

Spring Concert

Thursday 14 March 2019
St George’s Hanover Square, London

Summer Concert

Tuesday 11 June 2019
St George’s Hanover Square, London