Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra / Klaus Mäkelä

Alongside Antonín Dvořák’s popular Ninth, his Seventh Symphony is also one of the Czech master’s most cherished works. Following its world premiere in London, an enthusiastic critic praised the new work for »fully meeting the highest expectations« and described it as »one of the greatest symphonies of our time«. Indeed, the Seventh became one of Dvořák’s most successful works even during his lifetime.

In the second half of the concert, Jennifer Johnston and Gerald Finley take on the roles of the newlywed couple in Béla Bartók’s macabre opera Duke Bluebeard’s Castle. In this impressionistically dazzling soundscape, Judith, the young wife of the mysterious prince, attempts to fathom her husband’s hidden nature. Yet behind every door she opens, a new, dark secret is revealed – until her fate is sealed. For the then thirty-year-old Bartók, who in his one-act opera combined narrative elements of Richard Wagner with the musical language of Claude Debussy, the success of the premiere marked his definitive breakthrough as a composer.