Antonio Pappano conducts two works in which love leads to lunacy: Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique and Jake Heggie’s song cycle, Camille Claudel: Into the Fire, featuring mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. Musical tales of boundless passion and madness come to life. Hector Berlioz explored his obsessive love in the Symphonie fantastique. Joyce DiDonato sings Into the Fire, Jake Heggie’s bittersweet song cycle about the French artist Camille Claudel, whose affair with her associate Auguste Rodin proved to be her undoing. Such a programme calls for a conductor who knows how to deliver drama in a perfectly measured way. Sir Antonio Pappano manages to lead the Concertgebouw Orchestra on this emotional roller coaster without going off the rails. PROGRAM Heggie: Camille Claudel – Into the Fire; Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique
Notre-Dame: The Renaissance
Over five years following the devastating fire, France’s renowned Notre-Dame de Paris has once again opened its doors, marked by a glamorous concert to honor its restoration. The event featured performances both within and around the cathedral, along with a breathtaking light show highlighting the structure’s exquisite façade. The cathedral welcomed a diverse lineup of performers, such as Pharrell Williams, Angélique Kidjo, Lang Lang, Benjamin Bernheim, Marion Cotillard, Yo-Yo Ma, Khatia Buniatishvili, Pretty Yende, and Daniel Lozakovich. The concert was conducted by Gustavo Dudamel and featured the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.
Peltokoski conducts Holst and Vaughan Williams
Tarmo Peltokoski, a favourite of audiences and musicians alike, is at the conductor’s podium to begin his final season as the LNSO’s Artistic Director and Principal Conductor. The accordion part of “Tango” by Arturas Maskats is played by the widely acclaimed bandoneonist Arturs Noviks. Gustav Holst is celebrating his 150th birthday in 2024, and therefore his most famous work, the symphonic suite “The Planets” is part of the program. Each movement of the seven-movement suite is dedicated to a different planet in the solar system and its astrological characteristics. In its final movement, “Neptune, The Magician”, the orchestra is joined by the singers of the Riga Project Choir, directed by Christopher Walsh-Sink. Their voices can also be heard in the performance of Ralph Vaughan-Williams’ Seventh or “Antarctic Symphony”, which has its roots in the music for the 1948 film “Scott of the Antarctic”. PROGRAM Holst: Planets; Vaughan Williams: Antarctic Symphony; Maskats: Tango
RCO: Mäkelä conducts Strauss and Wagner
The chief conductor has traditionally led the orchestra in the Christmas Matinee – and now its future chief conductor, Klaus Mäkelä, assumes that role, leading the Concertgebouw Orchestra in a programme based on the theme of love. Wagner surprised his wife Cosima with the ‘Siegfried-Idyll’ on Christmas Day, 1870. Marital love also inspired Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, which he dedicated to the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Unsuk Chin’s subito con forza is a declaration of love for the music of Beethoven. It was with this same work that Klaus Mäkelä opened the programme he conducted on his Concertgebouw Orchestra debut in September 2020, when sparks between maestro and orchestra first flew. PROGRAM Unsuk Chin: subito con forza; Wagner: Siegfried-Idyll; Strauss: Ein Heldenleben
Dancing Queen
‘Everybody dance!’ – With this call, the lautten compagney BERLIN, together with saxophonist Asya Fateyeva, invites the audience to embark on an exciting journey through three centuries of musical history. It seems audacious to link Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) and ABBA (1972-), two absolute giants of European music history. However, even a second listen reveals countless similarities: the originality and catchiness of their melodies, the rhythmic buoyancy and the unrestricted popularity of both building a bridge from the present day to a time when it was less the Queens and more the Kings who could be found on the dance floor. ABBA’s music is arranged, played on instruments from the baroque period and not just juxtaposed with Rameau’s music. In fact, the pieces are sometimes so fused that it is almost impossible to recognise what was penned by the late baroque Frenchman and what came from the Swedish pop quartet’s workshop.
Blomstedt conducts Bruckner 9
To mark the bicentenary of Anton Bruckner’s birth, Herbert Blomstedt and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra are bringing his Symphony No. 9 in D minor to the sumptuous Austrian abbey of St Florian, with which the composer had a strong bond.
Lucerne Festival 2024: Chailly conducts Mahler 7
The Lucerne Festival Orchestra opens the 2024 edition of the summer festival on Lake Lucerne with Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 7, the most complex and mysterious of his symphonies and for a long time his least frequently performed work. The conductor will be none other than the Italian conductor Riccardo Chailly, himself an ardent admirer of the Viennese master.
Lucerne Festival 2024: Chailly conducts Rachmaninoff
The Lucerne Festival Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly continues its Rachmaninov journey on Lake Lucerne. The program includes the rare Symphonic Movement in D minor, the Symphonic Dances, Op. 45 and the Scherzo in D minor. In the spotlight: the shooting star Alexander Malofeev, who performs the Piano Concerto No. 1. Alexander Malofeev, who attracted the attention of the classical music world at a young age, is, according to Riccardo Chailly, “more than just a child prodigy” and, despite his young age, possesses not only technical mastery but also a musical maturity that makes him the “ideal Rachmaninov interpreter”.
RCO: Mäkelä conducts Bruckner 5
In the field of Bruckner’s symphonies, the Concertgebouw Orchestra has built up an enviable reputation. For this reason, a performance of the Fifth Symphony together with conductor and artistic partner Klaus Mäkelä, is a not-to-be-missed opportunity. “It is in my opinion the greatest achievement as far as the symphonic form goes.” (Klaus Mäkelä)
RCO: Honeck conducts Bruckner 8
Discover Anton Bruckner, architect of mighty symphonic buildings, in the monumental Eighth Symphony under the baton of Manfred Honeck. Bruckner’s Eighth is a mighty fortress and a thrilling ride from darkness into light. Its world is, by turns, complex, gracious, peaceful, and turbulent – Bruckner invites you in, takes you along, and never lets you go.