Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote most of his violin concerto in the spring of 1878 in Clarens on Lake Geneva, where he, in the company of the young violin virtuoso Josef Kotek, recovered from the failure of his short marriage. Kotek had introduced him to Edouard Lalo's Symphony espagnole, and Tchaikovsky transferred this principle of a strongly rhythmic virtuosity to a symphonic solo concerto of classical design. Despite initial rejection, for example by the court virtuoso Leopold Auer from St. Petersburg and the Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick, his violin concerto quickly asserted itself and is still considered a touchstone of virtuoso and imaginative violin playing today.
Claude Debussy's La Mer and Alexander Scriabin's Le Poème de l'extase stand for the beginning of the symphony of the young 20th century. Both works were written at about the same time, and both are rooted in traditional symphonic thinking, in working with themes and keys, their development and increased, affirmative return. Both composers, however, expand the symphonic experience through the targeted, refined use of timbre as a new dimension of design: Debussy to a cyclic symphonic whole, which ultimately forces its shimmering wealth of forms under a thematic unity; Scriabin to an expansive, almost anaesthetic exaggeration - overwhelming confirmation and self-dissolution in one.

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PROGRAM
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY Polonaise from the third act of the opera Eugen Onegin, Op. 24
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY Concert for Violin and Orchestra in D, Op. 35
CLAUDE DEBUSSY La Mer – Trois esquisses symphoniques
ALEXANDER SKRIABIN Le Poème de l’extase, Op. 54