Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra / Martin Helmchen / Tarmo Peltokoski

The first half of the concert is devoted to the animal kingdom. Following Yao Chen’s »Waltz of the Rolling Giants«, audiences can enjoy Camille Saint-Saëns’s beloved orchestral classic »The Carnival of the Animals«: hens cluck, the cuckoo calls, tortoises creep, elephants stomp and kangaroos leap, while one dreamlike movement plunges into a mysterious underwater world. The piano parts are performed by the acclaimed pianist Martin Helmchen and Tarmo Peltokoski himself.

This idyll gives way in the second half to a fierce struggle for power, filled with intrigue and fateful entanglements. Richard Wagner originally spread his operatic epic »Der Ring des Nibelungen« across four evenings, each lasting four to five hours. Fortunately, various conductors, composers and arrangers have distilled some of its most memorable moments into compelling orchestral suites. In Dutch arranger Henk de Vlieger’s adaptation of the »Ring«, key scenes from the drama unfold vividly before the listener: the legendary Rhinegold shimmers, the hammers of the underground smithies of Nibelheim ring out, the heroes Siegfried and Brünnhilde awaken to life, and, of course, the famous »Ride of the Valkyries« – known far beyond the opera house through films such as »Apocalypse Now« – thunders through the orchestra.