Among many celebrated works of Bach’s, the Violin Concerto No.2 in E major and the Concerto for Two Violins in D minor are deeply cherished by the music lovers. While the arrangement of Violin Concerto No.2 remains simple and elegant, the Concerto in D minor features two leadings violins, creating a rich, refined baroque sound. Through Concerto for Three Violins in F Major, Nai-Yuan Hu, Ray Chen, and William Wei —— three violinists from three different generations —— aim at presenting the genius of Vivaldi to audiences with their own unique personalities.

Two works by musical giants composed nearly a century and a half apart, but which share a common theme: the composers’ efforts to “push the ceiling” of style current at the time and to create something different while incorporating values of the past. Beethoven’s First Symphony was a landmark event that not only initiated the great canon of nine from this composer, but was to have repercussions on the genre that reverberated across the span of the entire century: larger formal dimensions, an expanded time frame, bolder and more sophisticated harmonic adventures, increased emotional intensity, and an emphatic sense of force and aggressiveness. In his Concerto in D for Strings, Stravinsky adopted the concerto grosso principle of the Baroque period in its contrasts of full string ensemble from which time to time emerge smaller groups of instruments in a quasi-solo capacity.