Salonen conducts Mahler No. 2

Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony is undoubtedly the most popular of all his symphonies. The composer stages a gradual victory over his doubts and asserts his creative vocation and his newfound faith in the cosmos. The audience is immediately struck by the opening chaos orchestrating a magniicent funeral. The sublime final chorus enraptures listeners as it celebrates the Last Judgement and the divine love that is spread everywhere. Resurrection takes up in a spectacular way the question of a hypothetical renewal: the Stadium de Vitrolles near Aix has been preserved in a state of beauty ravaged by twenty-five years of abandonment and clandestine occupations. Inside this iconic building Romeo Castellucci tackles the enigma of a mysterious rebirth. “It became big, very big, beyond huge, beyond gigantic.” (Opera Today)

Ravel, Alborada del Gracioso

The works presented in this concert are among Ravel’s most celebrated orchestral pieces. The “Alborada del Gracioso” or “Jester’s Morning Song” was originally part of the piano collection “Miroirs”. Ravel himself arranged the scintillating piece for orchestra in 1918. Written in 1903, the orchestral song cycle “Shéhérazade” is based on texts by the painter Tristan Klingsor. Of his Piano Concerto in G major, Ravel said that it was “written in the spirit of Mozart and Saint-Saens.” But while the influence of Mozart is clearly felt in the Adagio, it is American jazz that permeates the dazzling Presto finale. The concert rhapsody “Tzigane” was apparently inspired by the playing of violinist Jelly d’Arányi. Premiered on 12 December 1920, Ravel’s “La Valse” was originally called “Wien” (Vienna) – a title not considered appropriate in France so soon after World War I. Though conceived as a ballet, it was not performed as such until 1928, when Ida Rubinstein staged it at the Paris Opéra. Perhaps Ravel’s most well-known work is “Bolero”, which was a sensational success at its premiere at the Paris Opéra on 22 November 1928 and has remained unquenchably popular ever since. The year 1975 marked the centennial of Maurice Ravel’s birth (7 March 1875), an event celebrated with particular brilliance in France. One of the special concerts given to commemorate the great French composer was held at Paris’s Théâtre des Champs Elysées on 19 September 1975 and featured the Orchestre National de France led by Leonard Bernstein. The all Ravel concert also featured the soloists Marilyn Horne in the song cycle “Shéhérazade” and the violinist Boris Belkin in “Tzigane”. Bernstein himself played the solo part in the G major Piano Concerto. The concert was such a dazzling success that the critic of Le Figaro was stirred to proclaim about Bernstein: “He IS Ravel”.

Raphaël Pichon conducts Bach’s Mass in B Minor

Young French conductor Raphaël Pichon is the founder of Pygmalion, one of today’s most fascinating and ambitious ensembles for Early Music. Hailed by critics as “currently the best conductor for Bach” (Süddeutsche), Pichon performs an absolutely breathtaking Mass in B Minor in the beautiful Royal Chapel of Versailles.

Vespro della beata Vergine (Vespers for the Blessed Virgin)

Raphaël Pichon and his ensemble Pygmalion join forces with a brilliant group of soloists to present Monteverdi’s monumental Vespro della beata Vergine in a setting as resplendent as the music they are performing: Versailles’s Chapelle Royale. “A masterful interpreter of early music” (BR Klassik)

Daniel Harding – The Inaugural Concert: Schumann Scenes from Faust

For his inaugural concert as the new Musical Director of the Orchestre de Paris, the young British conductor Daniel Harding chose to conduct a work with which he has already enjoyed phenomenal success in Berlin, Munich and London: Robert Schumann’s rarely performed Szenen aus Goethes Faust (Scenes from Goethe’s Faust). A Magical evening in the Parisian concert hall, with an aesthetic excellence that leaves you speechless.” (Huffington Post) “For his inauguration concert Harding lands a coup.” (Le Figaro)

Paris: Harding conducts Schumann “Paradise and Peri”

Daniel Harding, the new music director of the prestigious Orchestre de Paris, pays homage to Schumann through one of his most radiant works: Das Paradies und die Peri (Paradise and the Peri), an adaptation for orchestra, choir and soloists of an oriental tale and a jewel of romanticism. Matthias Goerne, Christiane Karg, Andy Staples, Kate Royal, Gerhild Romberger and Allan Clayton join Harding and the Orchestre de Paris in a worldly Oratorio that exalts the heavenly purity of paradise in the shimmering and magical colours of Arabian Nights.