Page 536 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK

27 June 2022

FIRST NIGHT | CLASSICAL
Oliver Knussen Day review —

Aldeburgh’s dizzying tribute to a

tireless mentor

Snape Maltings, Suffolk
Richard Morrison

The tribute day at the Aldeburgh Festival featured four concerts

★★★★☆

As a composer, conductor, teacher and tirelessly encouraging mentor, Oliver Knussen had an
immense influence on hundreds of musicians. Four years on from his death, that influence —

and the reciprocal love it engendered — was evident throughout this tribute day at the

Aldeburgh Festival. It comprised four concerts containing a slightly dizzying 40 pieces of music

that he wrote, premiered, admired or inspired.

The day culminated in a BBC Symphony Orchestra concert conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth
that contained, remarkably enough, a substantial Knussen world premiere: his Cleveland

Pictures. Commissioned in 1999 by the Cleveland Orchestra in Ohio, it was not finished in time