Christmas gifts

Movies and musicals, dreams and nostalgia, joy and sadness. Join us on a journey into the major classics of cinema and entertainment, together with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and English conductor John Wilson. Simply scanning the programme for this glittering concert fills the mind with imagery and music. 

John Wilson is an authority on movie scores and he has reconstructed and arranged many classic soundtracks for the concert context. Since 1994, Wilson has also led his own hand-selected orchestra which has specialised with great success in music from movies and musicals.

As the vocal soloist, we will hear none other than American Broadway and West End star Kim Criswell. A 40-year career has taken her to the greatest stages worldwide – including classic strongholds such as La Scala in Milan, Wiener Musikverein in Vienna and Philharmonie in Berlin.

Successful South Korean composer Unsuk Chin was the focus of Konserthuset’s Composer Festival in 2013. She now returns with a newly composed orchestral piece. It is a joint commission from the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester. Entitled SPIRA, the piece is a masterful concerto for orchestra.

After intermission, we will hear Bruckner’s symphonic world through one of his best-known symphonies: the seventh. This symphony was a major turning point in his career and a resounding audience success! It was also the first of his symphonies to be recorded.

Bruckner deeply admired Wagner, and the symphony’s adagio features a melancholy elegy to the masterful composer, who Bruckner idolized. The scherzo is a heavy-footed folkloric dance and features a crowing rooster via the trumpet, while the finale reprises a theme from the introduction.

The concert is conducted by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s previous chief conductor, now Conductor Laureate, Alan Gilbert (who is also the newly appointed chief conductor of the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg). If you would like to hear him play the viola, you are welcome to Konserthuset on 19 January to hear the Philharmonic Up-Close concert subscription performance.

Successful South Korean composer Unsuk Chin was the focus of Konserthuset’s Composer Festival in 2013. She now returns with a newly composed orchestral piece. It is a joint commission from the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester. Entitled SPIRA, the piece is a masterful concerto for orchestra.

After intermission, we will hear Bruckner’s symphonic world through one of his best-known symphonies: the seventh. This symphony was a major turning point in his career and a resounding audience success! It was also the first of his symphonies to be recorded.

Bruckner deeply admired Wagner, and the symphony’s adagio features a melancholy elegy to the masterful composer, who Bruckner idolized. The scherzo is a heavy-footed folkloric dance and features a crowing rooster via the trumpet, while the finale reprises a theme from the introduction.

The concert is conducted by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s previous chief conductor, now Conductor Laureate, Alan Gilbert (who is also the newly appointed chief conductor of the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg). If you would like to hear him play the viola, you are welcome to Konserthuset on 19 January to hear the Philharmonic Up-Close concert subscription performance.

In 2018, conductor Franz Welser-Möst received the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s Eric Ericson Honorary Chair, and beginning in autumn 2020 he will lead the orchestra for two weeks each season. The collaboration is based on the excellent relationship that arose between the orchestra and conductor following their first concerts together, and which has deepened throughout the years.

Richard Strauss composed several pieces that described phenomena or environments that were beyond music. He called them tone poems. Aus Italien is one of the first and he referred to it as a symphonic fantasy. On a trip to the countryside, he was utterly overcome, which is evidenced in the music as we take a tour of the rural scenery, visit Roman ruins, behold the ocean from the shore of Sorrento and are fascinated by Neapolitan public life.

Composer, clarinettist and conductor Jörg Widmann often uses elements of older classical music in his imaginative compositions. He is one of Germany’s most acclaimed names in music and was tasked with composing a large oratorio for the opening of the Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg in 2017. The Babylon Suite is a version for large orchestra with music from his opera Babylon, which was a huge success at the Bavarian State Opera in 2012.

In 2018, conductor Franz Welser-Möst received the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s Eric Ericson Honorary Chair, and beginning in autumn 2020 he will lead the orchestra for two weeks each season. The collaboration is based on the excellent relationship that arose between the orchestra and conductor following their first concerts together, and which has deepened throughout the years.

Richard Strauss composed several pieces that described phenomena or environments that were beyond music. He called them tone poems. Aus Italien is one of the first and he referred to it as a symphonic fantasy. On a trip to the countryside, he was utterly overcome, which is evidenced in the music as we take a tour of the rural scenery, visit Roman ruins, behold the ocean from the shore of Sorrento and are fascinated by Neapolitan public life.

Composer, clarinettist and conductor Jörg Widmann often uses elements of older classical music in his imaginative compositions. He is one of Germany’s most acclaimed names in music and was tasked with composing a large oratorio for the opening of the Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg in 2017. The Babylon Suite is a version for large orchestra with music from his opera Babylon, which was a huge success at the Bavarian State Opera in 2012.

French Louise Farrenc was a great admirer of Beethoven. The second of her three symphonies is directly connected to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2, like a musical sibling.

Beethoven charged his second symphony with surprising effects in a completely new way. Quite suddenly, the orchestra shifts at times from the most delicate of sounds to roaring bursts of forte. He was also the first ever to replace the traditional minuet with a scherzo, which suited Beethoven’s wild humour and dramatic mood.

Louise Farrenc was a prominent name in the nineteenth century French music scene. She was active as a composer but was also a brilliant concert pianist, and she spent thirty years as a professor at the historic conservatory in Paris. She herself had studied piano there under greats such as Ignaz Moscheles and Johann Nepomuk Hummel, and composition under Anton Reicha.

Louise Farrenc was not at all concerned with Parisian audiences’ primary interest in opera and parlour music. Instead, she derived her musical life force from Germany and Beethoven, which we can hear at this concert.

Konserthuset Stockholm’s major Beethoven Festival will feature a guest appearance at this concert by the historic Gävle Symphony Orchestra under its chief conductor, Jaime Martín.

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 is rich with contrasts and drama, yet suffused with light and serenity. Beethoven’s music is presented here beside British composer Sally Beamish, who has based several of her works on music by Beethoven. ”Beethoven has been an inspiration to me since my childhood, when I would play through my grandmother’s collection of Beethoven piano sonatas and concertos”, Sally Beamish explains.

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 is considered his most humorous symphony. This is music with charming melodies, rhythmic whims and surprising accents; even so, it is certainly not lightweight. We will also hear his significantly darker Coriolanus Overture, composed for a drama by Austrian writer and poet Heinrich Joseph von Collin.

British composer Sally Beamish (b. 1956) has a particularly special relationship to Beethoven. Her third piano concerto, City Stanzas, is based on Beethoven’s first piano concerto, and her string quartet, Opus California, builds on the theme from Beethoven’s string quartet Opus 18 No. 4. On this occasion we will hear her Hover, in which the violin plays a central role, and Whitescapes, composed in 2000 when she was Composer in Residence with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra.

Konserthuset Stockholm’s major Beethoven Festival will feature a guest appearance at this concert by the Swedish Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Martin Fröst, who will take over as chief conductor of the orchestra in autumn 2019.

Lars-Erik Larsson’s highly popular lyrical suite God in Disguise, with lyrics from Hjalmar Gullberg’s collection of poetry Kärlek i tjugonde seklet (Love in the Twentieth Century) had its world premiere in April 1940. The music was composed for radio and intended for a radio audience (both Larsson and Gullberg worked for Radio Sweden at the time). Gullberg was inspired by ancient mythology: the god Apollo was punished with having to wander in disguise among humankind on earth. Based on this notion, Gullberg commented on his contemporary era: he was powerfully affected by the persecution of Jews in Germany. Since its world premiere on the radio in the middle of the raging war, God in Disguise has become a Swedish concert classic – a piece that tells the story of shared humanity and which inspires hope as keenly today as it did then.

Igor Stravinsky created his ballet music for Pulcinella based on several pieces by the eighteenth-century Italian composer Pergolesi. This music, equal parts refined and elegant, was a huge success when the ballet had its world premiere in 1920. We are now far from the expressionistic Stravinsky who scandalized audiences with his Rite of Spring in 1913; this music dances forth with light footsteps instead. Two years later, Stravinsky created this concert suite in nine short movements. Like Pulcinella by Stravinsky, Serenade for Strings by Dag Wirén is said to be in the so-called neoclassical style of the twentieth century. The serenade is light and melodic, and bubbles with early summer atmosphere. This is Wirén’s most popular piece.

Conductor Tabita Berglund studied cello under Truls Mørk, and played with ensembles including the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra before switching to conducting at the Norwegian Academy of Music. Since 2015, her primary focus has been on conducting and in 2018 she was among the prizewinners of the Neeme Järvi Prize at Gstaad Conducting Academy. This is her debut with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.

Debussy’s La mer can be seen as a tribute to the sea, and it became one of his great successes. He composed it with beloved memories of the sea in mind; as an adult, he preferred to experience the sea through art and literature rather than physically.

Yes, music can evoke powerfully vivid imagery from within. In this programme, we will move across ocean and land. The Swan of Tuonela is inspired by the Finnish epic, the Kalevala, and it belongs to the four-part Lemminkäinen Suite, but the music was originally meant to be an overture to the opera which Sibelius never completed: The Building of the Boat. The Swan of Tuonela is a lyrical snapshot of the Tuonela river (river of death), where Lemminkäinen must shoot the black swan in order to win Pohjala’s daughter. 

The versatile Torbjörn Iwan Lundquist wrote music that engaged powerfully with life’s most significant issues. For Lundquist, nature and our relationship to it was a starting point, something which inspired Landscape for tuba, string orchestra and piano.

English Dame Ethel Smyth was a composer, author and an important figure of the suffragette movement. She met composers such as Dvorák, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Over time, Ethel Smyth became a notable cultural personality. We will hear the picturesque On the Cliffs of Cornwall from her foremost opera, The Wreckers, composed in 1902–04 and inspired by the environments and history of smuggling around Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

The concert is conducted by Joshua Weilerstein, artistic director for the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, and as the soloist in Landscape we will hear Karl-Johan Elf, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s tuba player since 2010.

Debussy’s La mer can be seen as a tribute to the sea, and it became one of his great successes. He composed it with beloved memories of the sea in mind; as an adult, he preferred to experience the sea through art and literature rather than physically.

Yes, music can evoke powerfully vivid imagery from within. In this programme, we will move across ocean and land. The Swan of Tuonela is inspired by the Finnish epic, the Kalevala, and it belongs to the four-part Lemminkäinen Suite, but the music was originally meant to be an overture to the opera which Sibelius never completed: The Building of the Boat. The Swan of Tuonela is a lyrical snapshot of the Tuonela river (river of death), where Lemminkäinen must shoot the black swan in order to win Pohjala’s daughter. 

The versatile Torbjörn Iwan Lundquist wrote music that engaged powerfully with life’s most significant issues. For Lundquist, nature and our relationship to it was a starting point, something which inspired Landscape for tuba, string orchestra and piano.

English Dame Ethel Smyth was a composer, author and an important figure of the suffragette movement. She met composers such as Dvorák, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Over time, Ethel Smyth became a notable cultural personality. We will hear the picturesque On the Cliffs of Cornwall from her foremost opera, The Wreckers, composed in 1902–04 and inspired by the environments and history of smuggling around Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

The concert is conducted by Joshua Weilerstein, artistic director for the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, and as the soloist in Landscape we will hear Karl-Johan Elf, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s tuba player since 2010.

The monumental orchestral piece Sinfonietta, with its characteristic brass fanfare, quickly became a success worldwide. It was dedicated to the Czechoslovak Army and Janácek said himself that it was intended to express “contemporary free man, his spiritual beauty and joy, his strength, courage and determination to fight for victory.” The finale is a grand celebration of brass instruments, filled out with additional trumpets.

Janácek and Dvorák were good friends. They also shared a strong interest in folk music. Dvorák had enormous international successes in his lifetime and crowned his career with an appointment as a professor of composition in New York. When he returned home, he immersed himself once again in the folk music he had missed so much in America. Among other things, it inspired him to compose four grandiose symphonic poems inspired by Czech ballads. In The Golden Spinning Wheel, we can follow the magical action through Dvorák’s music.

Canadian violinist James Ehnes has been called “the Jascha Heifetz of our era.” With unerring musicality and electrifying technique, he is in constant demand as a soloist on the world’s concert stages. Here, we will get to hear him in Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 1, a musical portrait of the young violinist Stefi Geyer, with whom he was in love and to whom he wrote long, passionate letters. 

An interest in folk music unites all three composers heard at this concert. Bartók travelled around the Hungarian countryside, and to Romania, Bulgaria, the rest of the Balkans and North Africa to record and catalogue

The monumental orchestral piece Sinfonietta, with its characteristic brass fanfare, quickly became a success worldwide. It was dedicated to the Czechoslovak Army and Janácek said himself that it was intended to express “contemporary free man, his spiritual beauty and joy, his strength, courage and determination to fight for victory.” The finale is a grand celebration of brass instruments, filled out with additional trumpets.

Janácek and Dvorák were good friends. They also shared a strong interest in folk music. Dvorák had enormous international successes in his lifetime and crowned his career with an appointment as a professor of composition in New York. When he returned home, he immersed himself once again in the folk music he had missed so much in America. Among other things, it inspired him to compose four grandiose symphonic poems inspired by Czech ballads. In The Golden Spinning Wheel, we can follow the magical action through Dvorák’s music.

Canadian violinist James Ehnes has been called “the Jascha Heifetz of our era.” With unerring musicality and electrifying technique, he is in constant demand as a soloist on the world’s concert stages. Here, we will get to hear him in Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 1, a musical portrait of the young violinist Stefi Geyer, with whom he was in love and to whom he wrote long, passionate letters. 

An interest in folk music unites all three composers heard at this concert. Bartók travelled around the Hungarian countryside, and to Romania, Bulgaria, the rest of the Balkans and North Africa to record and catalogue