Timothy Redmond

Pelléas et Mélisande, a symbolist drama written by Maeterlinck in 1892, was one of the most beloved works at the turn of the century, and especially by musicians.

The opera Debussy drew from it in 1902 is famous, but Gabriel Fauré was the first to write music for Maeterlinck's drama: he composed the incidental music for the English performance in 1898. Music that Maeterlinck himself was enthusiastic about, unlike the clashes he had with Debussy (about which, the bone of contention was the choice of soprano Mary Garden instead of of Maeterlinck's lover Georgette Leblanc).

Also very successful was the music written by Sibelius in 1905 for the Swedish Helsinki Theater, where the drama had nearly twenty performances, filling the theatre from the premiere. Into the heated symbolism that dominates the programme comes Max Bruch's highly romantic Concerto No. 1 Op. 26, written in 1866, a work beloved by audiences and violinists alike, so popular that Bruch himself admitted in an interview that it would be the only piece to survive him. He was not wrong.

Orchestra leader: Timothy Redmond
Violin: Ilya Gringolts
Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano and Trento
Gabriel Fauré: Pelléas et Mélisande, Op. 80
Max Bruch: Violin and Concerto Orchestra Concerto no. 1 in G minor, Op. 26
Jean Sibelius: Pelléas et Mélisande, Op. 46