PolyU Orchestra • Music Connects – Violin Solo – Massenet's Méditation from Thaïs for Violin and Piano

Music Connects is an online music programme of the PolyU Orchestra. Members of the Orchestra have continued to produce music despite the pandemic.
 
Under the guidance of Mr Leung Kin-fung, the Artistic Director and Conductor, the PolyU Orchestra is presenting to you a wide range of musical genres in this series of Music Connects.

The son of an unemployed blacksmith Jules Massenet (1842-1912) went on to become one of the most popular of all French opera composers.  His opera, Thaïs, which was premiered in 1894, tells the story of a monk who sets out to save the breathtakingly beautiful Thaïs from her life of debauchery.  The monk persuades Thaïs to give up her sinful old life and embrace one of religious devotion.  The Méditation marks the moment in the opera when Thaïs decides to do this.  As the solo violin melody soars, Thaïs welcomes the purity of her new life, while on the violin’s occasional forays into its lower reaches, she reminisces (not always without a certain warmth of feeling) on her previous life of sensual pleasure.

Violin Solo
Jules Massenet︳Méditation from Thaïs for Violin and Piano

Performed by:
Howard Fong Ho-kee · Violin
Staff & Alumnus, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences

Dr Virginia Li Meng · Piano
Staff, Confucius Institute of Hong Kong