Starting in 1922, the Concertgebouw Orchestra performed a Beethoven cycle at the end of each season, during which all the symphonies – and other works too – would be performed, often in quick succession. The cycle was interrupted for the first time in 1957 for three performances of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis. The tradition then began to dwindle, with the last Beethoven Series performed in 1978. Now for the very first time, the orchestra will be performing all the symphonies in a single cycle, spread out over two seasons, under the direction of Iván Fischer. Approx. 06:00:00.
RCO: Mariss Jansons conducts Strauss and Tchaikovsky
Mariss Jansons conducts Richard Strauss’ famous tone poem “Tod und Verklärung” together with Tchaikovskys famous 5th symphony and a work by Dutch composer Johan Wagenaar, who died in 1942 and who’s music was considerably influenced by Richard Strauss. —– PROGRAM: Johan Wagenaar: The Taming of the Shrew / Richard Strauss: Tod und Verklärung / Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5
RCO: Giovanni Antonini conducts works by Bach, Haydn and Mozart
Italian conductor Giovanni Antonini, one of the leaders of the Italian period instruments movement, conducts the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra performing music by Bach, Haydn and Mozart. —– PROGRAM: Johann Sebastian Bach: Orchestral Suite No. 1 / Joseph Haydn: Cello Concerto No. 2 / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 38
RCO: Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducts Bruckner 5
After the acclaimed maestro Nikolaus Harnoncourt led the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in a performance of the Third Symphony back in 1994 and of the Fourth in 1997, he returns with Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony. Bruckner wrote his Fifth Symphony in Vienna, the city in which he composed most of his symphonies. The work stands out from the others, however, in that its general profile is more cerebral than mystical. Yet even in this impressive feat of contrapuntal technique, the divine light of Bruckner’s intense faith still shines through.
Mariss Jansons conducts Bruckner 9
As part of a fully fledged Bruckner festival, Mariss Jansons is conducting a series of Bruckner symphonies, each paired with a classical solo concerto – great music by great composers. The series gets under way with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1, composed in 1795. The work is, in actual fact, Beethoven’s second contribution to the genre, in which he pushes the boundaries of the instrument. The featured soloist is Lars Vogt. One hundred years after Beethoven had written his Piano Concerto, Bruckner concluded his monumental symphonic œuvre with the unfinished Ninth Symphony, leaving behind three completed movements and sketches for a finale in 1896, the year in which he died. In his swansong – the starkly dissonant Adagio –, Bruckner explores the very boundaries of tonality. —— Program: Ludwig van Beethoven – Piano Concerto No. 1, Anton Bruckner – Symphony No. 9.
Mariss Jansons conducts Bruckner 4
In many ways, Haydn and Bruckner are polar opposites. Haydn was a natural talent, while Bruckner was a late bloomer; Haydn was a self-assured professional who wrote music for weddings and parties just as easily as he did for great noblemen, while Bruckner plodded along laboriously, often plagued by feelings of insecurity. Both produced outstanding music, however, as evidenced by Haydn’s energetic, sunny Cello Concerto, performed here by the leading Norwegian cellist Truls Mørk, and by Bruckner’s most well-balanced symphony, the ‘Romantic’. —— Program: Joseph HAYDN – Cello Concerto, Anton BRUCKNER – Symphony No.4 (‘Romantic’)
Requiem for Hieronymus Bosch
s-Hertogenbosch’s most famous son, the famed painter Hieronymus Bosch lived and worked at the town marketplace, portraying medieval life in his paintings brimming with symbolism, fantasy and riddles. With the international event Bosch 500, ’s-Hertogenbosch is commemorating the five hundredth anniversary of the artist’s death in a spectacular way. The RCO’s house composer Detlev Glanert has been commissioned by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Bosch 500 to write a requiem for soloists, choir, organ and orchestra. The composition translates the demonic nature of Bosch’s paintings with textual counterparts into music. Glanert combines traditional requiem texts with excerpts from the manuscript collection Carmina Burana – each movement of the Requiem is accompanied by a poem about the seven deadly sins.
RCO: The Four Seasons – Vivaldi & Piazzolla
The concert gives people from different cultural backgrounds the chance to soak up the atmosphere of the classical concert hall. The programme features an exciting mix of Italian Baroque with Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and Argentine passion in the master of tango Astor Piazzolla’s own Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. Both the orchestra’s principal violinists, Vesko Eschkenazy and Liviu Prunaru, have been given the wonderful job of conveying, together with their fellow musicians, the shimmering quality of both idioms. (Cat. No. UNITEL: A865500200000).
RCO: Mäkelä conducts Ravel, Bartók, and Connesson
The Concertgebouw Orchestra, conductor Klaus Mäkelä and two of the orchestra’s soloists transport you to distant worlds. Fairy tales by Ravel and Bartók and two works by the contemporary sound wizard Guillaume Connesson: four pieces of music to take in visually. PROGRAM Ravel: Shéhérazade; Connesson: Les belles heures (oboe concerto, commission, Dutch premiere); Danses concertantes (flute concerto, commission, Dutch premiere); Bartók: music from ‘The Miraculous Mandarin’
RCO: Antonio Pappano & Joyce DiDonato
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