Concerto no. 2

Almost 25 years after the internationally successful first violin concerto Distant Light, Pēteris Vasks has composed a second concerto for violin and string orchestra. The theme of light also plays a role in the content of the new work in which Vasks reflects on evening light as a metaphor for the twilight years of human beings. The central of the three movements, which flow seamlessly into one another, focuses on the individual looking back on life with its intermittent dramas, and leads into a virtuoso cadenza of ecstasy. In contrast, the slow and cantabile outer movements are characterised by a calm and melancholy atmosphere of farewell to life with a hopeful expectation of the (evening) light on the horizon.