Prom 47 – Elgar, Prokofiev & Venables

Part of the BBC Proms.

Maverick Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto made a memorable Proms debut in 2016. Now he returns to premiere a new violin concerto written especially for him by award-winning young British composer Philip Venables. The piece grows out of a recording the composer found of himself as a teenager playing one of Bartok’s Hungarian Sketches to his teacher’s teacher, Rudolf Botta, a Hungarian refugee – and the journey that ensued. The concerto is framed by two works suffused with sunny optimism – Elgar’s lovely Introduction and Allegro for strings and Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony, a piece that rejoices in ‘the strength and beauty of the human spirit’.