Daniel Harding conducts the Europakonzert in Georgia

Daniel Harding

Night walk with Daniel Harding: in the somber Funeral March, Gustav Mahler’s shadowy, gloomy Seventh Symphony emerges as “the psychogram of a compulsive existence” (Wolfgang Stähr). Nachtmusik I, characterized by a horn duet, casts a wistful glance into bygone times; the Scherzo acquires a restless, spooky character; and Nachtmusik II becomes a nocturnal serenade especially through the presence of a guitar and a mandolin, instruments rarely found in an orchestra. After the eerie nocturnal atmosphere of the previous movements, the work’s gigantic finale transports the listener towards the light – a change of mood that left the audience attending the work’s premiere somewhat perplexed. Today, Mahler’s Seventh is considered a masterpiece of symphonic form, as will be exemplified in Mahler specialist Daniel Harding’s performance.

Daniel Harding

Night walk with Daniel Harding: in the somber Funeral March, Gustav Mahler’s shadowy, gloomy Seventh Symphony emerges as “the psychogram of a compulsive existence” (Wolfgang Stähr). Nachtmusik I, characterized by a horn duet, casts a wistful glance into bygone times; the Scherzo acquires a restless, spooky character; and Nachtmusik II becomes a nocturnal serenade especially through the presence of a guitar and a mandolin, instruments rarely found in an orchestra. After the eerie nocturnal atmosphere of the previous movements, the work’s gigantic finale transports the listener towards the light – a change of mood that left the audience attending the work’s premiere somewhat perplexed. Today, Mahler’s Seventh is considered a masterpiece of symphonic form, as will be exemplified in Mahler specialist Daniel Harding’s performance.

Daniel Harding

Night walk with Daniel Harding: in the somber Funeral March, Gustav Mahler’s shadowy, gloomy Seventh Symphony emerges as “the psychogram of a compulsive existence” (Wolfgang Stähr). Nachtmusik I, characterized by a horn duet, casts a wistful glance into bygone times; the Scherzo acquires a restless, spooky character; and Nachtmusik II becomes a nocturnal serenade especially through the presence of a guitar and a mandolin, instruments rarely found in an orchestra. After the eerie nocturnal atmosphere of the previous movements, the work’s gigantic finale transports the listener towards the light – a change of mood that left the audience attending the work’s premiere somewhat perplexed. Today, Mahler’s Seventh is considered a masterpiece of symphonic form, as will be exemplified in Mahler specialist Daniel Harding’s performance.

Concert in the Basilica Ottobeuren

Europakonzert Riccardo Muti and the Berliner Philharmoniker in Bari

With its brick-red façade, a gleaming white entrance area and a magnificent red and gold auditorium, the venue for this year’s European Concert, Bari’s Teatro Petruzzelli, is an architectural jewel. Under the direction of Riccardo Muti, the Berliner Philharmoniker will present a mixed programme of Italian and German music. Rossini’s rousing William Tell Overture and the atmospheric ballet music from Verdi’s opera The Sicilian Vespers exude Italianità. Completing the programme, the dusky mixture of yearning and consolation in Brahms’ Second Symphony make the work a seminal example of late German Romanticism.

Klaus Mäkelä conducts the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Mahler

When Gustav Mahler came to Amsterdam to conduct the Dutch premiere of his First Symphony in 1903, a close collaboration started – so began the Concertgebouw Orchestra’s much-vaunted Mahler tradition. Klaus Mäkelä steps into that tradition with respect and self-confidence. He previously gave stunning interpretations of the Sixth and the Third, now it is time for the First, which he calls Mahler's 'pastoral’ symphony: ‘I’ve always been attracted to its imaginative beauty, and its freshness. The expression is extremely clear, and it contains all the elements of his later work.’Klaus Mäkelä opens the concert with Verklärte Nacht by Mahler's contemporary Arnold Schoenberg, who was born 150 years ago in Vienna. The late-romantic work is based on a poem by Richard Dehmel about a woman who confesses to her loved one that she is carrying someone else’s child. The music closely follows the conversation and draws the listener into an intimate emotional journey leading from fear and guilt to pure happiness.

Riccardo Chailly conducts the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Bruckner's Ninth

Riccardo Chailly, conductor emeritus and former chief conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, rounds off the symphonic cycle marking Anton Bruckner’s 200th birthday with his enigmatic swansong, the Ninth Symphony – including the finale, which the latest scholarship has deemed complete.Anton Bruckner’s symphonies are a pillar of the Concertgebouw Orchestra’s core repertoire. And they’re certainly in good hands with such an authority as Riccardo Chailly. He sees Bruckner as ‘a saint who constantly confronted the devil, a man of such piety that he dared to explore the darkness’. In the Ninth, darkness wins: Bruckner died before completing the work. The slow third movement is a dignified ‘farewell to life’, as Bruckner himself noted in the score. ‘It has to be the most beautiful thing I have ever written,’ he said of this moving Adagio. ‘It always grips me when I play it.’Many fragments of the missing finale were found among Bruckner’s personal effects. And for more than a century, these made up a fascinating puzzle, yet no one could piece them together to form a convincing whole. But a team of musicologists changed all that in 2012. The performance version by Samale, Phillips, Cohrs and Mazzuca is astounding, and changes the symphony’s tragic character: after three dark movements, the last brings redemption. Performed here is the ‘SPCM’ version heard in J.A. Phillips’s most recent revision dating from 2021–22.

Jaap van Zweden conducts the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Bruckner's Fourth

Jaap van Zweden conducts Anton Bruckner’s popular Fourth Symphony. Enticing, entreating themes and motifs which are constantly repeated lure us into a new sound world. Bruckner was more than a century ahead of Steve Reich’s hypnotic music. The American minimalist pioneer has written increasingly exuberant compositions over the years. Reich claims that the calibre of modern orchestras is now so high that he no longer need limit himself to composing for small ensembles. Music for Ensemble and Orchestra is an enchanting tapestry of tight rhythmic patterns and kaleidoscopic harmonies, with a timeless effect.Time also seems to stand still in Anton Bruckner’s symphonies, as if one were viewing a slowly revolving celestial body from a great distance. The Fourth Symphony, however, is an exceptionally agile and anecdotal work, which Bruckner himself described as a ‘romantic spectacle’ of medieval castles, magical forests and knights on proud horses.

Jaap van Zweden conducts the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Bruckner's Fourth

Jaap van Zweden conducts Anton Bruckner’s popular Fourth Symphony. Enticing, entreating themes and motifs which are constantly repeated lure us into a new sound world. Bruckner was more than a century ahead of Steve Reich’s hypnotic music. The American minimalist pioneer has written increasingly exuberant compositions over the years. Reich claims that the calibre of modern orchestras is now so high that he no longer need limit himself to composing for small ensembles. Music for Ensemble and Orchestra is an enchanting tapestry of tight rhythmic patterns and kaleidoscopic harmonies, with a timeless effect.Time also seems to stand still in Anton Bruckner’s symphonies, as if one were viewing a slowly revolving celestial body from a great distance. The Fourth Symphony, however, is an exceptionally agile and anecdotal work, which Bruckner himself described as a ‘romantic spectacle’ of medieval castles, magical forests and knights on proud horses.

Jaap van Zweden conducts the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Bruckner's Fourth

Jaap van Zweden conducts Anton Bruckner’s popular Fourth Symphony. Enticing, entreating themes and motifs which are constantly repeated lure us into a new sound world. Bruckner was more than a century ahead of Steve Reich’s hypnotic music. The American minimalist pioneer has written increasingly exuberant compositions over the years. Reich claims that the calibre of modern orchestras is now so high that he no longer need limit himself to composing for small ensembles. Music for Ensemble and Orchestra is an enchanting tapestry of tight rhythmic patterns and kaleidoscopic harmonies, with a timeless effect.Time also seems to stand still in Anton Bruckner’s symphonies, as if one were viewing a slowly revolving celestial body from a great distance. The Fourth Symphony, however, is an exceptionally agile and anecdotal work, which Bruckner himself described as a ‘romantic spectacle’ of medieval castles, magical forests and knights on proud horses.