NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Pekka Kuusisto / Esa-Pekka Salonen

NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Pekka Kuusisto / Esa-Pekka Salonen

They are two of the most exciting musicians in Finland and are now a proven dream team: conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and violinist Pekka Kuusisto. Together with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and two wonderful classics from the orchestral repertoire, complemented by an exciting discovery, they farewell the old year on Hogmanay and New Year and celebrate the new. At the latest since the classic film »2001: A Space Odyssey«, the opening of Richard Strauss’ symphonic poem »Thus Spoke Zarathustra« has been world famous: a trumpet fanfare brightly soars like a shaft of sunlight over darkly rumbling double basses. »We were sleepwalkers, we want to be daywalkers«, Strauss overwrites this work with a phrase from Nietzsche’s eponymous poetry – and in fact radiates the music in typical powerful Straussian imagery of light and heat. Also, with Ravel’s »Boléro«, the first notes are enough for you to recognise perhaps the most beautiful earworm in music history. For around 15 minutes, Maurice Ravel lets the melody wander through the orchestra and become ever more full-bodied – always accompanied by the little drum for which the piece is almost an athletic challenge.