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Mikhail Ovrutsky photo by Steven HaberlandHappiness can be hard-won, as was the case for all three composers in this New Zealand Symphony Orchestra concert. Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll was composed during a moment of marital bliss for his wife’s birthday, while Erich Korngold’s Violin Concerto was written during a period of success in America after he fled Nazi Germany.  Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 with its famous Fate theme was composed during a particularly dark time in the composer’s life, but still the composer was able to find joy in the simple pleasures of life.

Thus all life is an unbroken alternation of hard reality with swiftly passing dreams and visions of happiness.

– Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

The young Russian Virtuoso violinist Mikhail Ovrutsky joins the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and music director Pietari Inkinen for this concert.

Mikhail Ovrutsky (vln), New Zealand SO/Pietari Inkinen

WAGNER: Siegfried Idyll; KORNGOLD: Violin Concerto in D Op 35; MASSENET: Meditation, from Thaïs; TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No 4 in F minor Op 36

Recorded and broadcast by Radio New Zealand

Photo of Mikhail Ovrutsky by Steven Haberland