Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his Monteverdi Choir have a long-standing artistic partnership with the Salzburg Festival. With music by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy to Goethe’s “Walpurgis Night” and Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, Gardiner once again turns his attention to romantic music and confronts two great literary texts: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s ballad “The First Walpurgis Night” inspired the composer’s vivid depiction of the conflict between an ancient pagan community and the new aspirations of Christianisation, between faith and superstition on both sides. For Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” to the play of the same name by William Shakespeare the Monteverdi Choir is joined by seven top-class singers. PROGRAM: Mendelssohn Bartholdy: “Die erste Walpurgisnacht”; “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
RCO: Gardiner conducts Brahms Symphony No. 3
Who was Johannes Brahms? In a new cycle of four concerts, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, is investigating Brahms’s œuvre through the lens of the four symphonies performed over two seasons and accompanied by other works by the composer. The Third Symphony is juxtaposed with choral works sang by the Monteverdi Choir. Under the baton of Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Brahms is instilled with a new radiance and vitality. PROGRAM Brahms: Symphony No. 1, Choral Works
RCO: Gardiner conducts Brahms Symphony No. 4
Who was Johannes Brahms? In a new cycle of four concerts, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, is investigating Brahms’s œuvre through the lens of the four symphonies performed over two seasons and accompanied by other works by the composer. The Fourth Symphony is juxtaposed with the Second Piano Concerto with soloist Stephen Hough. Under the baton of Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Brahms is instilled with a new radiance and vitality. PROGRAM Brahms: Symphony No. 4, Piano Concerto No. 2
LSO: Gardiner conducts Mozart & Tchaikovsky
Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts Symphony No 2 from the great Tchaikovsky and incidental music from Schubert’s Rosamunde. He is joined on stage by Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires who performs Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 27. PROGRAM Schubert: Entr’acte Nos. 2 & 3 from ‘Rosamunde’; Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 27: Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 2 ‘Little Russian’
LSO: Gardiner conducts Schumann & Mendelssohn
Sir John Eliot Gardiner leads a journey through the Romanticism of Weber, Mendelssohn and Schumann. The Overture to Weber’s grand opera Euryanthe, which has taken on a life of its own in the concert hall, is a window onto some of the most exciting moments of the whole work. Isabelle Faust and Kristian Bezuidenhout then present Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Violin and Piano, which elegantly balances a measure of Classical restraint against rich and Romantic displays of feeling. We close with Schumann’s Third Symphony. One of the composer’s most impressive, it paints a euphoric picture of the German Rhineland in broad Beethovenian style, closing with an exhilarating finale. PROGRAM Weber: Euryanthe Overture; Mendelssohn: Concerto for violin and piano; Schumann: Symphony No 3
LSO: Gardiner conducts Mendelssohn & Schumann
Inspired by his travels around Britain, and full of the influence of the rolling Scottish landscape, Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 – often known as ‘Scottish’ – and his Overture: The Hebrides are among his most popular and admired works. Programmed with Schumann’s richly imaginative Piano Concerto, acclaimed pianist Maria João Pires joins the Orchestra as soloist.”Even if they spoke with different accents these genial Romantics were united in their ambitious fervour for ‘abstract’ music to be acknowledged as having the same expressive force as poetry, drama or the literary novel. The three works on this album exemplify the endeavour and range of invention of two of them, friends and colleagues in Leipzig” (Sir John Eliot Gardiner). PROGRAM Mendelssohn, Overture: The Hebrides, Symphony No. 3; Schumann, Piano Concerto