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Richard Wagner (1813-1883) Siegfried Idyll
Aileen Sweeney Accordion Concerto, ‘Winter’
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) Concerto for four violins in B minor
Aleksandr Glazunov (1865-1936) Meditation Op.32
Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) Suite No. 1
from The Three Cornered Hat

On Christmas morning, 1870, Cosima Wagner woke to the sounds of a small orchestra playing in her hallway. Richard Wagner had rehearsed his musicians on a boat in the middle of Lake Lucerne in order to keep the first performance of Siegfried Idyll a complete secret! Aileen Sweeney’s concerto for accordion, ‘Winter’ won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s prestigious composition prize in 2023. Born and bred in Glasgow, Sweeney’s concerto explores three different winter festivals celebrated by the Ancient Celts. Manuel de Falla’s ballet, Three Cornered Hat, was based on a novel by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón and tells the tale of an elderly and corrupt Governor, a crafty miller and his beautiful, and faithful wife, who becomes the object of the Governor’s unwanted attention. It was given a sensational premier in London in 1919 by Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes with sets designed by Pablo Picasso.