Beethoven’s moving Ninth Symphony is being performed on the 2019 Christmas Matinee (“Kerstmatinee“) under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst with a superb singer quartet. Many generations of listeners have attended the Concertgebouw Orchestra’s festive Christmas matinees since the tradition was founded. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is an appeal for universal brotherhood – indeed it contains some of the most moving music Beethoven ever composed. A large chorus and four vocal soloists share the stage with the orchestra to get this key message across and the work continues to enchant young and old alike.
Gardiner conducts Haydn, Mendelssohn and Bruckner
Sir John Eliot Gardiner is most famous for his interpretations of Baroque music on period instruments, but his repertoire and discography are not limited to early music. In this production he is conducting the BR Symphony Orchestra with a program including Joseph Haydn’s: “Insanae et vanae curae”, Mendelsohn-Bartholdy’s Symphony No. 5 in D major/D minor (“Reformation) and Anton Bruckner’s Mass No. 1 in D minor.
BBC Proms 2019: Karina Canellakis conducts Dvorák and Janácek
Janácek’s monumental Glagolitic Mass, steeped in Moravian rhythms, is heard alongside Dvorák’s fairy-tale tone-poem The Golden Spinning Wheel and and a World Premiere by Zosha Di Castri, a new work that marks the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s mission to the Moon. Karina Canellakis conducts the massed forces of the BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, BBC Singers and soloists in one of the 20th century’s great choral masterpieces. “The performance of the season” (The Times) PROGRAM Zosha Di Castri: Long Is the Journey – Short Is the Memory; Dvorak: The Golden Spinning Wheel; Janacek: Glagolitic Mass
RCO: Mäkelä conducts Mahler 8
Performances of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony are not so common, especially on the anniversary of Mahler’s death. Led by their Chief Conductor Designate Klaus Mäkelä, Mahler’s ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ was the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra’s final contribution to the Concertgebouw’s Mahler Festival 2025. With four choirs—the Dutch National Radio Choir, the Laurens Symfonisch, Le Chœur de l’Orchestre de Paris, and the Dutch National Children’s Choir— this huge choral ensemble demonstrated immense energy and power. Seven international soloists, sopranos Golda Schultz and Miriam Kutrowatz, altos Jennifer Johnston and Okka von der Damerau, tenor Giorgio Berrugi, bariton Michael Nagy, and bass Tareq Nazmi, were all formidable. “A monumental Eighth from Klaus Mäkelä and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra” (Bachtrack)