Mendelssohn: The Complete Symphonies No.2

The E minor Violin Concerto, performed tonight by Alina Ibragimova, is arguably the composer’s greatest musical achievement. It dates from 1844, the latest work in this series, and while classically proportioned its seemingly endless flow of melody and genius of invention also make it a pinnacle of the early Romantic era – the benchmark which so many future concertos for the instrument aspire to or rebel against. The series comes to a fitting conclusion with Mendelssohn’s wonder-filled Lobgesang (Song of Praise), a symphony-cantata written in 1840 to mark the 400th anniversary of Gutenburg’s movable type printing press, one of the great Enlightenment inventions, with Sir András directing.