He is currently revolutioning the classical music world with his brilliant playing and progressive, cross-genre approach to music: as a phenomenon at the piano, Hayato Sumino has been appointed as 2026 Artist in Residence Rheingau Musik Festival. He kicks off his residency as a soloist in Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, performing in the impressive Friedrich von Thiersch Hall of the Wiesbaden Kurhaus. Joining him on stage will be the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and its principal conductor Alain Altinoglu. In addition to Rachmaninoff, the programme also includes Borodin’s spirited Polovtsian Dances and Elgar’s mysterious Enigma Variations, which transport the audience to a late Romantic era full of sumptuous melodies and orchestral passion. PROGRAM Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No 2; Elgar: Enigma Variations; Borodin: Polovtsian Dances
London Festival Ballet Double Bill: Sanguine Fan & Graduation Ball
SANGUINE FAN / A stylish ballet of wit and bitter-sweet romance, to Sir Edward Elgar’s only ballet score. Originally inspired by a mythological drawing in sanguine chalk on a fan, this production by Peter Docherty represented a very special place in the repertory of Festival Ballet. GRADUATION BALL / A comedy set in a fashionable Viennese girls’ school. An end-of-term dance, to which the cadets of a neighbouring military academy have been invited, begins with formal politeness and some shyness. Natural liveliness and youthful high spirits soon break through however – particularly when the headmistress and the elderly general are discovered to have embarked on a flirtation.
Elgar: Cello Concerto & Sibelius: Symphony No. 1
Sir Mark Elder and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra present a concert experience on the highest level at the Grote Zaal of Rotterdam’s famous De Doelen Concerthouse, performing Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor, together with the internationally acclaimed German cellist Daniel Müller-Schott. Elgar’s Cello Concerto, his last notable work, is a cornerstone of the solo cello repertoire and, according to Müller-Schott, one of the composer’s most personal works. It is passionately performed by this “fearless player with technique to burn” (The New York Times), considered “one of the finest cellists before the public today” (The Sunday Times).
Being a passionate admirer of Jean Sibelius, Sir Mark Elder completes his programme with the Finnish composer’s Symphony No. 1.
New Year’s Eve Concert 1979
Gaiety and temperament are the keynotes of this New Year’s Eve program with the London Philharmonic Orchestra recorded live in Munich’s Herkulessaal on New Year’s Eve 1979. It begins with “Gaieté Parisienne,” an arrangement of Jacques Offenbach’s most popular operetta melodies. This is followed by a generous helping of central European esprit in the Slavonically inspired dances of Léo Delibes’ “Coppélia” ballet, and in the Viennese lightness of Franz von Suppé’s “Pique Dame” Overture, a delicious little work by the founding father of the Viennese operetta. Amilcare Ponchielli’s “Dance of the Hours” has delighted “promenade” concertgoers for years now – perhaps because it reminds us of his two great pupils Puccini and Mascagni? The luscious lyricism of the waltzes from Richard Strauss’s “Rosenkavalier” is dispelled by the solemn majesty of Sir Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4.” From Victorian England we travel to Czarist St. Petersburg, to the magical world of Peter I. Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite.” And since all good things must come to an end, the Land of Sweets disappears under a vigorous sprinkling of fiery paprika in Johannes Brahms’s “Hungarian Dance No. 5,” which closes the program on a spicy note.
Festive Advent Concert at the Frauenkirche Dresden 2023
It is the traditional start to the pre-Christmas season for classical music lovers throughout Germany: On the eve of the First Advent, the Frauenkirche shines in its baroque splendour and offers a magnificent experience with the Sächsische Staatskapelle under the baton of its music director Christian Thielemann and internationally renowned singers. This edition’s guests are soprano Hanna-Elisabeth Müller (“with a smooth, melodious, effortless sounding voice and great diction”, Online Merker) and tenor Mauro Peter (“offering a lyrical swell with depth”, Sächsische Zeitung). The programme includes baroque instrumental music, Romantic choir works and atmospheric arias. Together with “his” orchestra, “Christian Thielemann spread ut a carpet of pulsating sonority, dynamically highly differentiated, flexibly responding to the respective partners.” (Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten)
Elgar, Pomp And Circumstance, op.39 No.4
BBC Proms 2019: Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla conducts Elgar and Weinberg
The CBSO and Music Director Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla celebrate the centenary of Mieczyslaw Weinberg the man Shostakovich hailed as ‘one of the most outstanding composers’ of his day – with a rare performance of his Symphony No. 3, a work that combines folk melodies and dances with confessional urgency. That intensity is shared by Elgar’s passionate Cello Concerto, performed here by 2016 BBC Young Musician winner Sheku Kanneh-Mason. The concert opens with Dorothy Howell’s radiant tone-poem Lamia (first performed, like Elgar’s concerto, 100 years ago) and also includes The Way to Castle Yonder, a suite from the much-missed Oliver Knussen’s opera Higglety Pigglety Pop! “A performance of surpassing delicacy and refinement” (The Telegraph) PROGRAM Weinberg: Symphony No. 3; Elgar: Cello Concerto; Dorothy Howell: Lamia; Knussen: The Way to Castle Yonde
BBC Proms 2017: Barenboim conducts Birtwistle and Elgar
Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin, returning heroes of the BBC Proms, give the UK premiere of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s Deep Time at the Royal Albert Hall in London. They contrast the contemporary piece with the Second Symphony by Edward Elgar, thus reaffirming their special relationship with the revered British composer: “The Staatskapelle, driven by Barenboim, has become probably the world’s best Elgar-orchestra.” (Die Welt) They earn praise for playing his Opus 63, which is considered one of the greatest English symphonies, “with heroic sweep and heart-melting beauty” (Spectator) and “magnificent energy” (Daily Telegraph). Despite a five minute blackout during the recording of the performance, this unique concert of Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin was captured in its entirety, with beauty shots compensating for any discontinuity. PROGRAM Elgar Symphony No.2; Birtwistle: Deep Time
Gardiner conducts Berlioz and Elgar
The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France joins forces with conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner and violist Antoine Tamestit for a concert featuring Italy and putting two composers in the spotlight: Hector Berlioz and Edward Elgar. With Harolde en Italie, Hector Berlioz invokes transalpine landscapes. Shaped by the period when the composer was resident at the Villa Medici, this symphony in four parts gives pride of place to the viola, played here by Antoine Tamestit – “one of the two or three greatest current performers” (Diapason). In the South (Alassio), composed between 1903 and 1904 by Edward Elgar, is still about Italy, pastoral atmosphere and Byronic colours. Brilliantly complex, this work, written in record time, is one of the peaks of romantic music. Let us travel a little deeper into Edward Elgar’s melancholy with his Sospiri. This adagio for strings composed at the dawn of the First World War is captivating in its romanticism and passion.
Harding conducts Elgar’s “The Dream of Gerontius”
“The Dream of Gerontius”, Edward Elgar’s striking musical meditation on life after death, showcases superb choral writing and Wagnerian inflections. Daniel Harding leads the Orchestre de Paris. Mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená performs as Guardian Angel alongside Andrew Staples and John Relyea in the Grand Salle Pierre Boulez. Created in 1900, this great oratorio, often called the “English Parsifal”, is considered a national gem. While it has been the subject of unconditional admiration for more than a century in England, it was rarely performed outside England’s borders. Even if George Bernard Shaw had no doubt that Elgar’s music was to be immortal, it took some time to prove that he was right. The powerful work, which keeps in tradition with greats like Beethoven, is now revered throughout the world and in this case receives a stellar staging in the beautiful Philharmonie de Paris.