Renowned violinist Gil Shaham will perform at Music Hall Nov. 8 and 9 with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Though Saturday’s show is sold out, seats are still available for the Friday performance — so snag ’em while you can.
Named “one of today’s preeminent violinists” by the New York Times, Shaham will play Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Violin Concerto”.
The piece was composed during what Tchaikovsky biographer David Brown calls his “Crisis Years” (1874-1878). At the center of which was a tumultuous and short-lived marriage to former student Antonina Milyukova. The wedding was an attempt to keep his homosexuality from the public, a reasoning he soon realized was ill-fated.
It dissolved after three months and Tchaikovsky traveled to Switzerland, where he first penned the “Violin Concerto.” Leopold Auer, a famed violinist and educator, is said to have called the piece “unplayable,” despite Tchaikovsky having dedicated the work for solo violin to him. But some scholars say that tale is lost in Russian-to-English translation — they say, instead, that Auer dubbed it “unviolinistic.” Still — it pained Tchaikovsky to hear. He re-dedicated the piece to Adolph Brodsky who premiered it in 1881. The well-known and beloved work has regularly been played for audiences across the globe ever since.
When Grammy-Winner Shaham takes the stage this weekend with the CSO, he’ll do so under Music Director Louis Langrée. The concert, running one hour and 50 minutes (with intermission), will also feature Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Petrouchka (think the tragic Russian cousin of Disney’s Pinocchio) and Julia Wolfe’s Fountain of Youth, a CSO co-commission with the New World Symphony.
Tickets range $14-$130. For more info, visit cincinnatisymphony.org
This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 12, 2019.
