Soup Concert with violin and cello

Lera Auerbach was born in Russia but now identifies as an American composer. She has composed commissioned pieces for the Lucerne Festival and the Royal Danish Ballet, and her first opera had its world premiere in 2011 in Vienna. In 2017, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra performed her orchestral piece Icarus. Today’s soup concert offers a taste of Auerbach’s tonal language with Three Dances in the Old Style from 2000.

In addition, we will hear music from J.S. Bach’s 15 inventions, which were originally composed for piano, and two pieces for violin and cello entitled Lullaby and Grotesque by Rebecca Clarke. Clarke was a brilliant alto violinist and a prolific composer who left behind around 100 pieces when she passed away in 1979.

Maurice Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello was completed in 1922 and is dedicated to the memory of Claude Debussy, who had passed away a few years before. The piece comprised a new focus in a sense, as Ravel sought out the essence of music with a more concentrated tonal language.

These interpretations are by Gabriel Cornet and Hanna Dahlkvist. Gabriel has been a member of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra since 2016, and previously played with ensembles including the Toulouse Chamber Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, and the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra. Between 2011–2013, Hanna was Radio Sweden station P2’s artist in residence, which included many radio-broadcast concerts and world premiere performances of work by contemporary Swedish composers. She joined the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in 2015.