London Phoenix Orchestra: 1945, Year of Release
Sinfonia Smith SquareSmith Square, Westminster
Tue 20 Oct · 19:30
About this event
For noted pacifist and conscientious objector Benjamin Britten, his opera Peter Grimes – its premiere a month after VE Day marking the reopening of Sadler’s Wells – was a landmark. Hailed as launching the revival of British opera, it also established Britten as the leading British composer of his generation. The Four Sea Interludes , which would become the opera’s concert hall calling card, were premiered a week later. Meanwhile, in America, Bohuslav Martinů, resident there since 1941, was in the midst of writing his Symphony No. 4 when news of Germany’s capitulation broke. Perhaps not coincidentally, the work is suffused with optimism and joy. For Erich Wolfgang Korngold, the end of the war marked a release from his self-imposed vow that he would concentrate solely on film music – the source of financial security for him and his family – until Hitler had been defeated. The first of these compositions, encouraged by violinist and fellow émigré Bronisław Huberman, was his lush and enduringly popular Violin Concerto.
