"The most terrible period of human history is at an end"

Amongst the best work to come out of Strauss's famous 'indian summer' is his 1945 masterpiece Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings. Lamenting the memory of a culture irrevocably altered by the destruction wreaked on Germany during the Second World War, its expression of grief for a lost world still resonates today. Premonitions of war feel out-of-place in Vita Kaprálová's Partita for Piano and Strings, despite being penned in Paris in 1939. Victor Wang is soloist in this neo-classical, energetic, and urban work. Opening the concert is George Walker's Lyric for Strings, a personal lament on the death of his grandmother, written in 1946 when he was still a student. Conducted by Rob Jones.