Tchaikovsky and Bruckner

with conductor Myung-whun Chung and cellist Gautier Capuçon

image: Gregory Batardon

Cellist Gautier Capuçon makes a solo appearance with the Concertgebouworkest in Tchaikovsky’s nostalgic Variations on a Rococo Theme. Plus Myung-whun Chung conducts Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony.

Tchaikovsky transports us to the bygone belle époque with scrollwork motifs, gold leaf and smiling cherubs.

Concert programme

  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

    Variations on a Rococo Theme

  • -- interval --

  • Anton Bruckner

    Symphony No. 6

Performers

About this concert

Although Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Anton Bruckner are known to be full-blooded romantics, here conductor Myung-whun Chung emphasises the lighter, classical aspects of their music. In his Variations on a Rococo Theme, Tchaikovsky demonstrates that he was strongly influenced by the elegance and transparency of Mozart and the Classics. The compelling main theme transports us to the bygone belle époque with scrollwork motifs, gold leaf and smiling cherubs. The ‘narrator’, the French cellist Gautier Capuçon, returns to the Concertgebouworkest eight years since his first appearance. 

Bruckner is often accused of being too expansive, but his Sixth Symphony, lasting less than an hour, may be called relatively short. Its orchestration is modest, its themes more clearly delineated than in the Austrian composer’s other symphonies. Bruckner was – justly – very happy with it and said, endearingly: ‘Die Sechste is die keckste (the Sixth is the sauciest)’.

Dates and tickets

About this concert

Although Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Anton Bruckner are known to be full-blooded romantics, here conductor Myung-whun Chung emphasises the lighter, classical aspects of their music. In his Variations on a Rococo Theme, Tchaikovsky demonstrates that he was strongly influenced by the elegance and transparency of Mozart and the Classics. The compelling main theme transports us to the bygone belle époque with scrollwork motifs, gold leaf and smiling cherubs. The ‘narrator’, the French cellist Gautier Capuçon, returns to the Concertgebouworkest eight years since his first appearance. 

Bruckner is often accused of being too expansive, but his Sixth Symphony, lasting less than an hour, may be called relatively short. Its orchestration is modest, its themes more clearly delineated than in the Austrian composer’s other symphonies. Bruckner was – justly – very happy with it and said, endearingly: ‘Die Sechste is die keckste (the Sixth is the sauciest)’.

A preview