Salut D’Amour, Op. 12
Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
Elgar finished the piece in July 1888, when he was engaged to be married to Caroline Alice Roberts, and he called it "Liebesgruss" ('Love’s Greeting') because of her fluency in German. When he returned home to London on September 22 from a holiday at the house of his friend Dr. Charles Buck, in Settle, North Yorkshire, he presented it to her as an engagement present.
Concertino pour Flûte, Op.107
Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944)
This piece was composed in 1902 for flute and orchestra and was commissioned by the Paris Conservatoire in 1902, presumably as an examination piece for flute students. Among flautists, legend has it that Chaminade wrote the Concertino to punish a flute-playing lover after he left her to marry someone else, wanting to make a piece so fiendishly difficult that he could not play it (though he supposedly did manage). However, Chaminade had married a music publisher the year before the piece was commissioned, which lessens the validity of the legend.
Viola Concerto in G major, TWV 51:G9
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681- 1767)
Of Georg Philipp Telemann's surviving concertos, this piece is among his most famous, and still regularly performed today. It is the first known concerto for viola, was written circa 1716–1721 and contains four movements.
Symphony for Strings Opus 118a from String Quartet No. 10
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 10 in A-flat major, op. 118, was composed in 1964. It was premiered by the Beethoven Quartet and is dedicated to his close friend Mieczysław (Moisei) Weinberg. We are performing just the first movement of the string quartet arrangement.
Concerto for Violin and Oboe in C minor, BWV 1060
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Neither the date of composition nor of the first performance is known. This concerto was originally written for solo violin and oboe, with string orchestra and continuo; the only surviving score, however, is of Bach’s own arrangement as a concerto for two harpsichords.
