Vermont Symphony Orchestra

Modernism and the World of Yesterday
2025-02-15 19:30 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | Flynn Center, 153 Main Street, Burlington, VT, 05401, United States
Buy Tickets
SCROLL DOWN FOR ADVENTURE DINNER & COURTYARD MARRIOTT PARTNER OFFERS
Sir Stephen Hough returns to Burlington for a doubleheader of two composers’ first piano concertos. Mendelssohn’s propulsive work is partnered with the East Coast premiere of Hough’s The World of Yesterday, informed by musical sketches he composed for a WWII-era film score.
A symphonic poem by Polish composer Wojciech Kilar, whose movie scores include Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Portrait of a Lady, and English composer Anna Clyne’s tempestuous Sound and Fury round out this concert. This concert is conducted by VSO Music Director Andrew Crust.
Author M. T. Anderson joins the VSO as narrator for Clyne’s piece.
Of his concerto, Hough writes, “The World of Yesterday … is the title of the last book by Stefan Zweig, a memoir of his cultural life in Vienna before the First World War. I liked the instant suggestion of nostalgia with its evocation of a musical past of intense romance; and there is a section made up of a dark, decadent Viennese waltz with variations. But also such looking backwards has hints of the piano concerto’s own past as a form. From Mozart until the mid‑20th century a composer in most cases wrote a piano concerto for him- or herself to play. It was a way to communicate musical personality and to display pianistic prowess. This is true right up to Britten, Prokofiev, Bartók, Shostakovich and, supremely, Rachmaninov. What might it be to rediscover such a connection between creator and performer? This piece is my attempt to explore this.”
The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. and is preceded at 6:30 p.m. by Musically Speaking, a free pre-concert discussion that provides entertaining insight into the evening’s program with Vermont Public classical radio host Helen Lyons.

PROGRAM
Wojciech Kilar – Orawa
Felix Mendelssohn – Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra
Intermission
Anna Clyne – Sound and Fury
Stephen Hough – Piano Concerto: The World of Yesterday (East Coast premiere)

Kick off your Saturday evening with a pre-concert art gallery cocktail party with Adventure Dinner, just around the corner at Burlington City Arts! We’re taking over every floor of BCA with artful food displays and cocktails starting at 5:00 P.M. To learn more and buy a ticket, click here (and Adventure Dinner guests receive a special 20% ticket discount on this evening’s VSO concert at the Flynn)!

Our hotel partners at Courtyard Marriott Burlington Harbor are offering a discounted room rate of USD $179 + fees and taxes for the night of February 15 – just a ten minute walk from the Flynn. To take advantage of this offer, click here.

This concert is generously sponsored by Wallace and Mona Tapia, Melita Tapia, Copper Leaf Financial, Davis & Hodgdon Advisory Group, the Vermont Community Foundation Concert Artists’ Fund, the State of Vermont, and the Webb Trust Fund (part of VSO Endowment Funds). The media sponsor for this concert is Vermont Public, and guest artist accommodation is generously provided by Courtyard Marriott Burlington Harbor.
