Ollikainen, Beinart · Brahms, Sibelius

Ollikainen, Beinart · Brahms, Sibelius

Sibelius and Tchaikovsky

Sibelius's violin concerto is now the most performed of all violin concertos from the 20th century. Yet its musical language belongs to the late 19th century, and the music is warm and lyrical, dramatic and melancholic. Sibelius, himself a violinist, possibly wrote the concerto he himself would have wanted to play – albeit on a technical level far beyond his own. In this way, the violin concerto can be seen as a farewell to the youthful dreams of a career as a violin virtuoso. It is among the more challenging in the genre, as many violinists have attested.Taking on the challenge is the young award-winning violinist Maria Ioudenitch. In 2021, she won first prize in the prestigious Ysaÿe International Music Competition and the same year also the Tibor Varga International Violin Competition. Maria Ioudenitch was born in Russia but moved to the USA with her family at the age of two.Tchaikovsky composed his fifth symphony during a few summer months in 1888. He had complained about a lack of inspiration in the spring: "Am I burned out? No ideas, no desire?" But the fifth became a vital, emotionally charged, and in many respects brilliant symphony. It premiered under the composer's direction at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg in November of the same year.The concert opens with the Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodis's Liguria, music that takes us on a journey between five small fishing villages clinging to the cliffs along Italy's northwest coast.Read more about chief conductor Ryan Bancroft

Sibelius and Schumann

Sibelius' Violin Concerto is one of the most performed violin concertos of the 20th century. However, its tonal language belongs to the late 19th century, and the music is warm and lyrical, dramatic and melancholic. Sibelius, himself a violinist, possibly wrote the concerto he himself would have wanted to play – albeit on a technical level far beyond his own. It is among the more challenging in the genre, as many violinists have attested.Taking on the challenge is the Russian-born Israeli violinist Maxim Vengerov, one of the greats of our time, who has only performed with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra once before, and that was 30 years ago! He is ranked among the world's finest, and in addition to performing concerts on the major classical stages, he is a guest professor at both the International Menuhin Music Academy in Switzerland and the Royal College of Music in London.Full of inspiration, Robert Schumann began work on his second symphony in early December 1845. However, his depressions, poor health, and constant tinnitus meant that it wasn't until the following autumn that the symphony was completed. Yet, his severe personal condition has not left its mark on the music at all; instead, the symphony is bright and forward-looking: a resounding triumph over the darker aspects of life.The concert begins with the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho's hypnotically evocative Ciel d’hiver, Winter Sky – an arrangement of a part of her orchestral work Orion. The music is inspired by the Greek myth of the hunter Orion, who was transformed into a constellation. Saariaho's music possesses a strange beauty that makes her unique, and she is considered one of the most significant composers of our time. Saariaho passed away in 2023, and ten years earlier, she was awarded the Polar Music Prize.Learn more about Chief Conductor Ryan Bancroft

Sibelius Third Symphony

A Finnish program featuring the young Finnish conductor Emilia Hoving. She was named Newcomer of the Year by the Finnish critics in 2021, the same year she made her debut with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. She has studied with Sakari Oramo, the Conductor Laurate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and former chief conductor.Finnish-Swedish composer Ida Moberg – ”Finland's first female symphonist” – has only recently begun to receive recognition. She studied composition with her contemporary Sibelius and composed over 100 works. Her music is influenced by both spiritual and anthroposophical interests, and the orchestral suite Soluppgång (Sunrise) is not only inspired by nature but also a contemplation of human existence. The first movement of the suite was premiered by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra at the Nobel Prize Ceremony in 2022.Sibelius's first two symphonies are often described as national-romantic, but Symphony No. 3 from 1907 represents something entirely different. The music partly reverts to older musical forms and characteristics, but the third and final movement still breaks away from simple descriptions with its enigmatically shifting moods.

Kaipainen Schostakowitsch Sibelius

Kaipainen Schostakowitsch Sibelius

Concertgebouw Orchestra Essentials: Sibelius

The Essentials series introduces you to the masterpieces you will be happy to know, performed by the world-famous Concertgebouw Orchestra and complete with a lively introduction by the incomparable Thomas Vanderveken. At Essentials we welcome a new generation of music lovers, and the concerts typically have a pleasant informal atmosphere.Grand, epic, mysterious: Jean Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony is an enigma. ‘It was as if God the Father was throwing pieces of mosaic from the edge of heaven and asking me to figure out what the pattern was,’ wrote Sibelius of composing the symphony, inspired by the vast natural landscapes of Finland. The Fifth is sombre in character, the composer having suffered from deep depression. But the sun gradually broke through, and the music culminates in a radiant and sublime ending.Sibelius’s symphonies fit Santtu-Matias Rouvali like a glove, and he has been a welcome guest with the Concertgebouw Orchestra since his first appearance in 2020. Like a passionate sculptor, the Finnish conductor moulds the orchestra in changeable shapes and colours – just what Sibelius’s epic music calls for.Essentials starts at 9 p.m. with an imaginative introduction to the programme (in Dutch).

Brahms Dvořák

Brahms Dvořák

Beethoven & Brahms

True romance: for the composers of the Romantic era, music was about gazing into the human soul and transforming raw passion into timeless beauty.And music doesn’t get much more beautiful than Beethoven’s radiant Violin Concerto: a sunlit, soaring masterpiece in which the soloist almost seems to take flight. There’s certainly nothing earthbound about our soloist – the award-winning Korean violinist Hyeyoon Park has been described as ‘a marvel’. Her performance is the big, warm heart of a concert that opens with Schumann’s swashbuckling overture and ends with Brahms’s last symphony – tragedy, tenderness and defiance, told straight from the heart.