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Brett Dean premieres Viola Concerto in London

(June 2005)

"Brett Dean is a top-flight viola player as well as an upwardly mobile composer." So The Guardian summed up the double success of Dean’s new Viola Concerto, premiered in April by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Rumon Gamba, with the composer as violist.

Co-commissioned by the BBC and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the new work was described as "…a substantial affair, lasting some 25 minutes, elegantly proportioned and full of colourful musical imagery… After the opening Fragment has presented the thematic material, from which all that follows is derived in what Dean calls a "satellite of serenity", there comes the expansive, scherzo-like Pursuit, and then a final elegy called Veiled and Mysterious."

"It was an amazing display of sheer professionalism. Dean showed that the viola isn’t just the soulful, introverted instrument it’s always taken to be. It can engage in stomping, aggressive movement, it can soar to heights scarcely less giddy than a violin’s, it can conjure strange sounds. And Dean certainly has an inventive ear…"
Daily Telegraph

"…the haunting and arresting sounds are all his own, and bright colours suggest a strong connection to his country’s landscape. Indeed, the peaceful close, in which the previously hectic solo viola emerges purified, evokes a lullaby in which the earth seems to be singing itself to sleep."
The Times

"an up-and-coming craftsman-composer."
Financial Times

Future Dean projects include new works for the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, a Violin Concerto for Frank Peter Zimmermann and the Concertgebouw Orchestra under Daniel Harding commissioned by the Cologne Philharmonie, and an Asteroid for the Berlin Philharmonic’s Planets project under Rattle.

Photo: Nooza Weekender

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