Bridgewater Hall, 25 Apr 2026
Out of near-death experiences – life
Julia Wolfe - Big Beautiful Dark and Scary
Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto Berlioz Symphonie fantastique
Julia Wolfe was two blocks from the Twin Towers when the planes hit on September 11, 2001. Big Beautiful Dark and Scary is the sound of that aftermath: an ominous, awesome wall of sound. When he wrote his Violin Concerto, Tchaikovsky was also recuperating from personal turmoil: after a collapsed marriage and a failed suicide attempt, he escaped to the shores of Lake Geneva. In the company of a violinist muse – Josef Kotek – Tchaikovsky created a concerto of romance, peace and jollity, and a celebrated classic of the repertoire.
Personal suffering is distant in Tchaikovsky’s concerto, but front-and-centre of Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. Originally titled ‘Episodes in the Life of an Artist’, this “fantastic symphony in five parts” follows the tribulations of a gifted artist who, out of an unrequited love for a woman, falls into a deep malaise, and travels through opium-addled hallucinations. High drama.
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