What is almost certainly the most famous symphony ever written forms the climax of this wide-ranging concert with Marin Alsop, herself a regular and much-admired International Festival visitor.
From its unmistakably forceful opening – thought by many to symbolise fate knocking at the composer’s door – Beethoven’s Fifth guides you through turmoil and mystery, only to emerge in a triumphant climax of joy and optimism. It’s never more powerful than when experienced live, in the company of some of Scotland’s most accomplished musicians.
Before Beethoven’s pioneering symphonic journey, A Spell of Green Corn by Orkney resident composer Peter Maxwell Davies celebrates the islands’ ancient tradition of a fiddler blessing the furrow with a tune before crops are planted. It’s shot through with Scottish folk music and vivid evocations of storm-lashed Orcadian landscapes, building to a scene of celebration.
Alsop opens the concert with the unstoppable dance rhythms of the folk- and rock-inspired Strum by fellow New Yorker Jessie Montgomery, one of the USA’s most inspiring young composers.