We enter 2024 with a diverse concert of three emotive pieces.

In late 19th-century, the region where Finland and Russia meet, the promotion of Karelian folk culture was both fashionable and politically relevant in Finland. The resulting popular suite from Sibelius is full of glorious melodies, fanfares and solos, celebrated for its poignant use of folk tunes and aesthetics.

Similarly, Brahms, who was at heart a Romantic, was very much influenced by landscape and he may have chosen Wiesbaden on the Rhine for the setting of his Third Symphony. It contains an autobiographical essence with undertones of an exciting yet agonising period of his life – the tragedy of his mentor Robert Schumann and the love for Schumann’s wife Clara.

Echoing love and grief, the Dutch pianist and composer Henriette Bosmans’ Concert Piece for Violin and Orchestra, written in 1934, is dedicated to her husband violinist Francis Koene. After his death from brain cancer in 1935, her grief meant she did not write music for several years, compounded by the war, the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam and being a “half-Jew”, her music and performances were banned. Opening with a grand mourning melody from the orchestra, followed by the violin solo resembling the human voice, it is full of Eastern modes and an improvisatory feel while also dramatic, ending with a virtuosic finale.