Cello: Natalie Clein / Iuventus Chamber Orchestra
Conductor: Thomas Hull
Leader: Ruth Rogers
Gioachino Rossini: Overture to The Italian Girl in Algiers
Joseph Haydn: Cello Concerto in D major Hob.VIIb:2
(Interval)
Ludwig Van Beethoven: Symphony no. 4 in B flat, op. 60
Our headline artist this year is Dorset-born cellist Natalie Clein. Described by The Times as ‘mesmerising’ and ‘soaringly passionate’, she enjoys a distinguished international career performing with many celebrated artists and orchestras. For the Festival she treats us to music by that great master of musical invention Haydn – a composer close to her heart. His Cello Concerto in D, she reveals, ‘speaks, sings and dances and is so beautiful in its lyricism’.
The evening opens and closes with some thrilling Rossini and life-affirming Beethoven. Sitting between the revolutionary ‘Eroica’ and defiant Fifth, the Fourth Symphony is more subtly Beethoven at his best. Its inital mystery gives way to exhilaration, while constant offbeats throughout propel us to a furious final drama, a Haydenesque tease, and triumph.
