Ligeti and more in Scotland

Tasmin Little
photo Melanie Winning

Tasmin Little will be playing Ligeti's Violin Concerto in St Andrews, Edinburgh and Glasgow with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in a group of concerts conducted by Robin Ticciati (19, 20, 21 March). They are pairing the Ligeti with Slavonic Dances by Dvorak and a Haydn symphony. In an intelligently linked spring season, the orchestra is performing three programmes all linking the music of Haydn, Dvorak and Ligeti. 

Ticciati will also be conducting the orchestra in Ligeti's Melodien which is teamed up with another Haydn symphony and Dvorak's Cello Concerto with Steven Isserlis (27, 28, 29 March). The season starts next week with Richard Egarr directing the orchestra and providing the piano solo in Haydn's Piano Concerto in D Major, with music by Schubert and Mozart (5, 6, 7 March), and rather interestingly the brass players will be using natural horns and trumpets. There is also a chamber concert in Edinburgh with a chance to hear Zdenek Fibich's Quintet alongside music by Bartok and Janacek (23 March). Further information from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra's website.

Gyorgy Ligeti (1923 - 2006) originally wrote his Violin Concerto in 1990, but he made major revisions in 1992 and 1993. The final version was premiered by the dedicatee, Saschko Gawriloff, with the Ensemble intercontemporain conducted by Pierre Boulez. At the time, Ligeti was interested in alternative tunings, so one of the violins and a viola are tuned to the natural harmonics of the double bass. You can hear Tasmin Little playing the concerto at the Proms in 2003 with Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic on YouTube.