26th March 2024
The music of Finland, Norway and Denmark added to the enjoyment of a sunny early Spring afternoon when the Bardi played a programme of Sibelius, Grieg and Nielsen at De Montfort Hall on Sunday.
The programme opened with a performance of Grieg’s Peer Gynt suites Nos 1 and 2 which was followed by a rare performance Nielsen’s Flute concerto by flautist Anna Wolstenholme, an internationally known player based in Norway. The piece demands a virtuoso player and Wolstenholme was certainly the right choice for the piece.
The second half of the concert was occupied by a performance of Sibelius Symphony No. 2 in D major. Probably the most well-known of Sibelius’s Symphonies and certainly the most frequently performed, the piece runs through a wild gamut of feelings from a depiction of pastoral peace and quiet, through patriotism, the depiction of a national uprising and a positive finale portraying hope and victory over oppression. The Bardi did justice to all of this in good measure and the overall mood of the departing audience was certainly life affirming and happy.
