Leo McFall – Symphonieorchester Vorarlberg

What's it about?

With works by well-known as well as newly discovered composers, Leo McFall, British principal conductor of the Symphonieorchester Vorarlberg, opens up a view of Great Britain's rich musical tradition from the late 19th to the 20th century. Ethel Smyth and Elizabeth Maconchy are two hitherto little-known Anglo-Saxon women composers. While Smyth, who was also a suffragette, made her breakthrough in the major music scene with her opera The Wreckers around 1900 at the latest, Maconchy remained largely unnoticed. Her rarely performed Nocturne for Orchestra is a dense, poetic sound study. Benjamin Britten, on the other hand, is firmly anchored in the British music canon. His expressive vocal cycle Les Illuminations, based on texts by the symbolist Arthur Rimbaud, brings French linguistic art and British sonic subtlety into an impressive dialogue. The young soprano Emma Kajander lends her voice to this work and brings its dazzling variety of colours to life. Edward Elgar's classic Enigma Variations is finally one of the most popular works in British orchestral literature and is a multi-layered self-portrait of Elgar, full of emotionality, irony and depth.