What a treat to feature a local talent of such stature!

Our 4th episode features a performance of Prokofiev, Violin concerto no. 2 performed by Ottawa’s Kerson Leong. This is the first time this piece was performed by the Ottawa Symphony, and Kerson’s second performance with the Orchestra. Hailed as Canada’s next great violinist, Kerson electrified our audience with an energetic and beautiful performance.

Read All About It!

Read the original programme notes written by Dr. David Gardner.

Although this was the first performance of Prokofiev Violin concerto no. 2 by the Ottawa Symphony, these notes were written sometime in the 1990s for either the Hallé Orchestra (Manchester, U.K.) or the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (U.K.) for whom Gardner also writes. The Ottawa Symphony is certainly in good company!

Curators | Nos conservateurs

Dr. David Gardner
Ottawa Symphony Historian | Historien de l’ Orchestre symphonique d’ Ottawa

Alain Trudel
Ottawa Symphony Music Director | directeur musicale

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (1891 – 1953) was a Russian Soviet composer, pianist and conductor. As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous music genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. Of the established forms and genres in which he worked, he created seven completed operas, seven symphonies, eight ballets, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, a cello concerto, a symphony-concerto for cello and orchestra, and nine completed piano sonatas.

His Violin concerto no. 2 was premiered on 1 December 1935 in Madrid, by the French violinist Robert Soetens and the Madrid Symphony Orchestra conducted by Enrique Fernández Arbós. Prokofiev wrote it after the first performance of his Sonata for Two Violins, by Soetens and Samuel Dushkin, which pleased him greatly. Dushkin had recently had a concerto written for him by Igor Stravinsky, so Prokofiev did the same for Soetens. Prokofiev was on a concert tour with Soetens while he was working on the concerto, and later wrote, "the number of places in which I wrote the Concerto shows the kind of nomadic concert-tour life I led then. The main theme of the 1st movement was written in Paris, the first theme of the 2nd movement at Voronezh, the orchestration was finished in Baku and the premiere was given in Madrid."

The concerto is more conventional than the composer's early bold compositions. It starts off with a simple violin melody related to traditional Russian folk music. The graceful violin melody flows throughout the entire second movement, and ends with the initial violin theme reappearing in the orchestra's somber lower register, now accompanied by the solo violin. The third movement rondo's theme has a taste of Spain, with the clacking of castanets each time the theme appears.

Did you know?

We’ve pulled together a few items about today’s episode.

• Brush Up in Advance
  Listen to the pre-concert podcast prepared for the April 1, 2019 performance by Prof. Alexis Luko, Carleton University School for Studies in Art and Culture & College of the Humanities.

• Ottawa Symphony Member Insight: Hear from section violinist Galina Rezaeipour, about the Russian sounds to listen for in Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto no. 2

• A fact: Prokofiev died on the same day as Stalin: March 5th, 1953.

• Test your knowledge of the man. Take Medici TV’s Prokofiev Quiz.

The Emergency Relief Fund of the Musicians’ Association of Local 180 (Ottawa-Gatineau) supports local musicians affected by the Covid-19 Pandemic.

To help, go to: ma180.org