Masterworks 2:  Bach Violin Concerto, November 7, 2026 7:30PM

Item details

Date

November 7, 2026 7:30PM

Location

Old Cabell Hall

Name

Masterworks 2:  Bach Violin Concerto

Description

Benjamin Rous, violin

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH  Violin Concerto in D minor

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL  Music for the Royal Fireworks

BENJAMIN BRITTEN  Four Sea Interludes

GEORGE ENESCU  Romanian Rhapsody No. 1

In a rare and captivating turn, Music Director Benjamin Rous steps to the front of the orchestra to serve as both conductor and violin soloist, performing the music of J.S. Bach.  The Concerto in D minor, a keyboard concerto that appears to be an arrangement of a lost work for violin, will be reconstructed to its original form, revealing fiery music full of fiddle-style pizzazz.  The program continues in the Baroque vein with Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks, a festive, bright work commissioned to celebrate the end of the War of the Austrian Succession and scored for a military-style band of brass, woodwinds, and timpani. Britten’s Four Sea Interludes, drawn from his opera Peter Grimes, is a musical portrait of the sea that surrounds and dominates life in an English seaside village. Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody No. 1, built on a series of folk melodies that grow faster and more thrilling as the piece progresses, completes this richly varied evening.