Klaus Mäkelä conducts Schumann
Violinist Julian Rachlin performs Gubaidulina’s Offertorium
Klaus Mäkelä: ‘Schumann’s music fills your heart with joy and sadness – the emotions are very pure and honest.’
Concert programme
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Seung-Won Oh
Spiri III: Sacred Ritual (commission, world premiere)
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Sofia Gubaidulina †
Offertorium for violin and orchestra
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-- interval --
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Robert Schumann
Symphony No. 4
Performers
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Klaus Mäkelä
chief conductor designate
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Julian Rachlin
violin
About this concert
From the first notes, the Fourth Symphony carries us away into Schumann’s utterly original world of dark romanticism. ‘Robert Schumann is the romantic composer’, says conductor Klaus Mäkelä. ‘His symphonies contain such wonderful moments. It always makes me feel good to play them. His music fills your heart with joy and sadness – the emotions are very pure and honest. Schumann makes me happy; he makes me a better person.’
His romantic musical language notwithstanding, Schumann was a great admirer of the early music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The famous Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina † also shows her indebtedness to the Baroque master, as in her much-praised Offertorium. The concert opens with the world premiere of a beautiful commissioned work by Seung-Won Oh. In the final piece of her Spiri trilogy, Spiri III, we’ll hear the perpetual breath of the cosmos, where beginnings become endings, and endings become beginnings.
Spiri III: Sacred Ritual was composed with the support of the Performing Arts Fund NL.
† On 13 March this year, Sofia Gubaidulina, one of the greatest composers of our time, passed away. We look back with gratitude on a long and close collaboration, which began with performances of her Offertorium in 1991.
Dates and tickets
About this concert
From the first notes, the Fourth Symphony carries us away into Schumann’s utterly original world of dark romanticism. ‘Robert Schumann is the romantic composer’, says conductor Klaus Mäkelä. ‘His symphonies contain such wonderful moments. It always makes me feel good to play them. His music fills your heart with joy and sadness – the emotions are very pure and honest. Schumann makes me happy; he makes me a better person.’
His romantic musical language notwithstanding, Schumann was a great admirer of the early music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The famous Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina † also shows her indebtedness to the Baroque master, as in her much-praised Offertorium. The concert opens with the world premiere of a beautiful commissioned work by Seung-Won Oh. In the final piece of her Spiri trilogy, Spiri III, we’ll hear the perpetual breath of the cosmos, where beginnings become endings, and endings become beginnings.
Spiri III: Sacred Ritual was composed with the support of the Performing Arts Fund NL.
† On 13 March this year, Sofia Gubaidulina, one of the greatest composers of our time, passed away. We look back with gratitude on a long and close collaboration, which began with performances of her Offertorium in 1991.