Mozart, Chisholm & Bartok by Mozart, Chisholm, E., Bartók, Fra (2015/2015), Dirigent Michael Collins, City Halls, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Please note change to originally advertised programme. To mark the 50th Anniversary of the death of Erik Chisholm, the BBC SSO gives the first performance for more than 60 years of one of the Glasgow-born composer’s most important pieces, his Violin Concerto. Last heard at the 1952 Edinburgh Festival when the distinguished Austrian-born violinist Max Rostal played it with the BBC Scottish Orchestra and Ian Whyte, the concerto is a tour-de-force for both soloist and orchestra, richly coloured by Chisholm’s deep interest in Indian classical music. The programme also includes two pieces that have interesting associations with Erik Chisholm. The first is the ballet music from Mozart’s Idomeneo, and it was Chisholm who conducted the British premiere of the opera with the Glasgow Grand Opera Society in 1934. The second is Béla Bartók’s Suite No .2 - a substantial work, as nearly symphonic in scope as anything he composed. Chisholm befriended the great Hungarian composer and brought him to Glasgow in both 1932 and 1933 to perform in recitals of his music, and Chisholm was himself described as a ‘Scottish Bartók’ because of his use of folk idioms in his own music.