This is the final concert in the big Esa-Pekka Salonen spotlight, to which the Finnish multi-talent brings another new work from his own pen. Salonen has demonstrated his special feeling for the technical and musical characteristics of individual instruments in the past with solo concertos for the piano, cello, violin and, most recently, the clarinet.
It's going to be interesting to see what this very productive composer has written for the »queen of instruments«, which could easily replace an entire orchestra with its many different pipes and stops. The spectacular surround-sound instrument is played tonight by titular organist Iveta Apkalna.
Note: For licensing reasons, only the performance of Esa-Pekka Salonen's Sinfonia concertante for organ and orchestra is still available for streaming.
Performers
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester
Iveta Apkalna Orgel
Dirigent Esa-Pekka Salonen
Programme
Jean Sibelius
Rakastava (Der Liebende) op. 14 / Suite für Streichorchester, Pauken und Triangel
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Sinfonia concertante / Kompositionsauftrag von National Symphony NOSPR Katowice, Berliner Philharmoniker, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonie de Paris, Los Angeles Philharmonic und Elbphilharmonie Hamburg
– Pause –
Hector Berlioz
Liebesszene / aus: Roméo et Juliette / Dramatische Sinfonie op. 17
Alexander Skrjabin
Le poème de l’extase für großes Orchester op. 54
About the programme :Young love and cocaine: From Sibelius to Scriabin
Conductor Salonen shows the omnipotence of the organ's sound in a cleverly compiled programme that varies between soft and powerful, between tender love and almost insane ecstasy. In his »Rakastava« suite (the title means The Lover), Jean Sibelius captured with the modest but visionary timbres of a string orchestra and percussion more the lyrical and emotional moments of young love, as they are described in the poems that the suite is based on, taken from Elias Lönnrot's collection of Finnish folk verse »Kanteletar«.
Hector Berlioz pursued a similar path in his Romantic musical version of the famous balcony scene from Shakespeare's »Romeo and Juliez«. Alexander Scriabin, on the other hand, wasn't content with gentle hints in his 1908 piece »Poème de l’extase«, set for a huge ensemble. The work, which some contemporaries thought to be »obscene«, culminates in a massive orchestral frenzy. »It was like bathing in ice, all cocaine and rainbows,« American writer Henry Miller commented.
