Violin Concerto

Composed specially for Esther Yoo, Raymond Yiu’s violin concerto is inspired by the life of the great Chinese violinist and composer Ma Sicong (1912-87). Echoes of the folksong-based second movement, Nostalgia, from Ma’s Inner Mongolia Suite (1937) thread through the concerto, itself a meditation on the sorrows of exile and a homage to a life broken by political persecution. Opening with a haze of ghostly premonitions, it breaks into a light-footed scherzo whose ‘trio’ pays homage to shidaiqu, a Shanghai genre from the 1920s and forebear of Chinese pop. The third movement is an extended cadenza based on a solo erhu recording, and the work ends in a quiet synthesis of its themes.