University Symphony Orchestra - Bonis, Mendelssohn and Strauss

Brinsley performed with the University of York Symphony Orchestra in its autumn concert in the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, conducted by John Stringer. Mel Bonis’s tone poem Le Songe de Cléopâtre opened the programme, Alexa MacLaren was the soloist in Mendelssohn’s First Piano Concerto, and the second half paired Busoni’s Berceuse élégiaque with Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration.¹

Programme

Mel Bonis Le Songe de Cléopâtre, Op. 180
Felix Mendelssohn Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25
Ferruccio Busoni Berceuse élégiaque, Op. 42
Richard Strauss Death and Transfiguration, Op. 24

Conductor: John Stringer · Piano: Alexa MacLaren

The review called this “a really attractive programme”, and found that Mel Bonis’s miniature “clearly revealed a composer of real stature and individuality”. Alexa MacLaren’s Mendelssohn was “simply exhilarating” from the introduction on, full of “sparkling passagework”; “the rapturous response from the capacity audience was genuinely touching”.²

More: Photographs from the concert · Alexa MacLaren on the Mendelssohn · Death and Transfiguration