Work of the Week - Thomas Larcher: Concerto

An Austrian in London – the composer Thomas Larcher has become a frequent and welcome guest in the UK over the past years and during the second half of this year his profile is set to rise even further. He will be at Kings Place on 9 October taking part in the Spoken Word day, and on 12 November the Wigmore Hall present a portrait day featuring his chamber music. But before these events, his new Concerto for violin, cello and orchestra will receive its world premiere at the BBC Proms.

At the Royal Albert Hall, soloists Viktoria Mullova (violin) und Matthew Barley (cello) will be joined by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ilan Volkov for the premiere on Thursday 18th August 2011.

The composer describes his new work as follows:

An enormous round space, an empty dark space … a moment in which the flow of time has been halted … noises emerge from the silence: a crackling and flickering which could form the preliminary stage of a sound … a high continuous tone. Suddenly the silence has transformed itself into a continuous, all embracing tonal space … the space contracts around me and begins to exert pressure on my lungs; the air is squeezed out, waves of unconsciousness seep through my head and the space transforms itself into a single, incomprehensively large wave … I am merely an infinitesimal particle within the body of this wave … someone opens a door, the room is large and dark; everything is quiet … the room opens out. I stand in this room and walk through it without however moving from my position … until, having been transformed into a point which is constantly moving further away, I disappear. (Thomas Larcher)

Before the main event, Larcher’s chamber music will be featured in a “Proms Plus Portrait” taking place at the Royal College of Music opposite the Albert Hall. The concert will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and the BBC website and for those in the UK on BBC 4 television too.

• Thomas Larcher - Profile
• BBC Proms 2011
• Wigmore Hall
• Concert Overview