Jennifer Koh Plays Berg’s “Violin Concerto” with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

Tonight at 7:00 on the Evening Concert on WILL-FM 90.9 Jennifer Koh is the soloist in Berg’s Violin Concerto with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Music Director Edo de Waart conducts. Also on the program: Webern’s orchestration of Bach’s “Ricercare No. 2” and Schoenberg’s orchestration of Brahms’ “G Minor Piano Quartet”.

Berg was asked to write a violin concerto for the violinist Louis Krasner. At the time he was working hard on his opera Lulu, which took him several years to write. He stopped working on the opera for four months in the summer of 1935 so that he could write the violin concerto. He had probably already started the concerto when he heard the sad news of the death of a girl called Manon Gropius, the daughter of Alma Mahler (who had once been Gustav Mahler's wife) and Walter Gropius. Berg decided to dedicate the concerto to Manon. He wrote at the top of the work: "To the memory of an angel." (courtesy wikipedia: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin_Concerto_%28Berg%29)

Monday January 26:  Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (MSO #14-04) (of 13)

Edo de Waart, conductor,

J.S. Bach/ orch. Webern: Ricercare No. 2 from the Musical Offering
Alban Berg: Violin Concerto "To the memory of an Angel" (violinist Jennifer Koh)
Brahms/orch. Schoenberg: Piano Quartet in G minor, Op. 21
[MSO fill: Brahms: Tragic Overture (archive material conducted by Matthias Pinscher) and
Webern: Im Sommerwind (archive material conducted by Matthias Pinscher)]