San Francisco Symphony / Johan Dalene / Esa-Pekka Salonen
Stucky / Barber / Salonen / Bártók – Multiverse Esa-Pekka Salonen
Daring avant-garde
Two of the works on tonight’s programme were given their first performance by conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen personally: the one-movement orchestral piece »Radical Light« by American composer Stephen Stucky, and »Nyx«, his own symphonic tribute to the Greek god of the night, shrouded in fascinating colours. Together with music by Barber, Bach and Bartók, they make for a concert programme that you don’t get to hear every day.
We can look forward to the return of Johan Dalene, who already attracted interest in the last Elbphilharmonie season as a Rising Star. The young Swedish violinist presents different facets of his talent in Samuel Barber’s romantic, rapturous Violin Concerto.
The evening ends on a wild note with the suite from Béla Bartók’s pantomime ballet »The Miraculous Mandarin«. Shortly after the first performance in Cologne in November 1926 Konrad Adenauer, then mayor of the city, had the work taken off the programme: not because of its avant-garde music, however, but because of the supposedly obscene story.
Performers
San Francisco Symphony
Johan Dalene violin
conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen
Programme
Steven Stucky
Radical Light
Samuel Barber
Konzert für Violine und Orchester op. 14
Encore:
Eugène Ysaÿe
Sonate e-Moll op. 27/4 für Violine solo
– Interval –
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Nyx für Orchester
Béla Bartók
Suite from »The Miraculous Mandarin«, Sz 73
Zugaben:
Jean Sibelius
Valse triste / from the incidental music »Kuolema«, Op. 44
Richard Wagner
Vorspiel zum 3. Aufzug aus »Lohengrin« WWV 75
Spotlight
The Americans
Multiverse Esa-Pekka Salonen