Visiting artist Lisa Batiashvili will perform in the San Francisco Symphony’s “all-Sibelius” program virtuosic Violin Concerto on March 14-16.
This was the only concerto Sibelius ever wrote.
Sibelius was himself a failed violin virtuoso, and the concerto is imbued with his love for the instrument.
The Symphony opens the program with Sibelius’s richly-scored tone-poem Finlandia, one of the composer’s most well-known works—a piece that inspired national pride and brought Sibelius personal fame and sweeping popularity.
The program also features the composer’s Symphony No. 1, which would be his international breakthrough.
The symphony was written during the political turmoil of Russian rule in Finland and became a patriotic rallying cry against the tsar and stood as a powerful declaration that Finnish culture was worth fighting for.