2024 September 20, 7 pm

LVSO Concert Hall

LVSO|BALTIC COUNTRY ORCHESTRA FESTIVAL: TARMO PELTOKOSKI AND LNSO

A. Muscat. "Tango"

G. Holst. "Planetos", op. 32

R. Vaughan Williams. "Sinfonia Antarctica" ("Antarctic Symphony")

The Baltic Orchestra Festival concert features world-renowned Finnish conductor Tarmo Peltokoski and the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, who this evening in Vilnius will perform a programme specially prepared for the start of their new concert season. The first part of the concert will feature the internationally acclaimed Tango by Latvian composer Arturo Maskats (b. 1957) and one of the most famous works by British composer Gustav Holst (1874-1934), the orchestral suite Planets. The suite consists of seven movements named after the planets of the solar system: Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Each of these movements reflects the astrological character of a planet, which influences the earthly human condition.

In the second part of the concert, the audience will hear the spectacular Antarctic Symphony by British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958). In 1948, Vaughan Williams was invited to compose the soundtrack for a film about the famous British polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott, who tragically died with his companions on the way back from his second expedition to Antarctica, just 20 km from the nearest food depot. The composer was so deeply moved by the story that he wrote most of the soundtrack before seeing the film script. Eventually, Vaughan Williams realised that this could be the foundation for a new symphony, and over the next few years he completed his seventh symphony, which he named the Antarctic Symphony.