Depth of feeling, melancholy and sadness: the programme of this concert with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under their chief conductor Jakub Hruša revolves around this triad. The concert begins with the Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, a musical declaration of love by the composer to his wife Alma. An ideal prelude to Strauss’ Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs), the composer’s “swan song”, written in 1948, at a time when Strauss saw his world in ruins after the war and was already plagued by illness. American soprano Corinne Winters “shone with intensity and bright heights” (Der Standard). The concert closes with Suk’s symphonic monumental work Asrael. In it, Suk deals with two strokes of fate, first the death of his father-in-law Antonín Dvorák and a little later also the surprising death of his wife, Dvorák’s daughter. “What a blast” (Der Standard)
RCO: Hrusa conducts Schumann, Dvorák and Suk
Yunchan Lim was the youngest ever winner of the legendary Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2022. Now, at the age of twenty-one, he is making his Concertgebouw Orchestra debut in Robert Schumann’s one and only Piano Concerto. The dreamy slow movement of this Romantic work is among the most beautiful Schumann ever composed. After the interval, the conductor Jakub Hruša guides us through his native Czech Republic with symphonic poems by two renowned fellow countrymen. In The Wild Dove, Dvorak tells a story full of passion, murder and all-consuming guilt in a village community. When Dvorak died in the spring of 1904, his pupil and son-in-law Josef Suk happened to be working on Prague, a symphonic ode to the city of Prague. The epic work would also become a homage to his mentor. PROGRAM Schumann: Piano Concerto; Dvorak: The Wild Dove; Suk: Prague