Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra - Nicola Benedetti
The exceptional Nicola Benedetti joins Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra to perform Elgar's Violin Concerto in B minor and Enigma Variations in collaboration with Oxford Festival of the Arts
Elgar Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61
Elgar Enigma Variations, Op. 36
Nicola Benedetti violin
Marios Papadopoulos conductor
The great violinist Fritz Kreisler rated Edward Elgar alongside Beethoven and Brahms. When Kreisler said as much in a 1905 newspaper interview, Elgar picked up the threads of a concerto he’d begun nearly two decades earlier. The piece he finished five years later, performed in this concert by the exceptional Nicola Benedetti, is as epic and emotive as it is personal and elusive, ‘enshrining the soul’ of an unknown person. A more famous enigma is found in Elgar’s dazzlingly virtuosic set of variations for orchestra. His Enigma Variations are portraits of friends and celebrations of orchestral panache. But they also offer glimpses into the soul of an artist who might have been careful not to reveal his secrets but was never afraid to show his emotions.
This performance is brought to the Sheldonian Theatre in collaboration with Oxford Festival of the Arts.
Pre-concert talk given by Sir Nicholas Kenyon at 18:30 - Elgar the ‘great English progressivist’
Edward Elgar is often thought of as a conservative, but Richard Strauss hailed him as adventurous and forward-looking. Nicholas Kenyon explores Elgar as he created pioneering 20th-century music and became a composer of unforgettable masterpieces.
Ticket Information
- Full price tickets: £20, £32, £42, £60
- £5 tickets for students/under-18s in the Upper Galleries and £5 off any other price band, 50% off for Disabled/Carer tickets (bookable by phone only)
- Age range: 6+
- Doors open at 19:00
- This concert will be 120 minutes with an interval
- Latecomers to be permitted at an appropriate pause in the music
- For ticketing queries, please contact 01865 980980
