Artist Portrait: Antoine Tamestit (Jörg Widmann Viola Concerto)

Jörg Widmann Viola Concerto
Dvořák In der Natur
Dvořák The Golden Spinning Wheel

Daniel Harding conductor
Antoine Tamestit viola
London Symphony Orchestra

Voices of nature and fabulous tales: Daniel Harding and viola player Antoine Tamestit explore the imaginary realms of Jörg Widmann and Antonin Dvořák.

With the music of Antonín Dvořák, there’s always something unexpected going on beneath the gloriously tuneful surface. A gothic Czech folk-tale takes on a truly universal resonance; and an open-hearted celebration of the Bohemian countryside blossoms into something rapturous, in colours reminiscent of Strauss or Mahler.

And since Dvořák was a viola player, what better way to set the mood than with the Viola Concerto by Jörg Widmann – the 21st century’s most playful (and inventive) descendant of that great Romantic tradition? ‘Even with the viola’s C-string alone, you can tell stories unimaginable on any other string instrument’, he says, and he wrote this piece specially for Antoine Tamestit, our soloist tonight. Music that dreams and then dazzles, performed by artists who just love the sound it makes.