Feuer und Eis

In the organizer's words:

Sakari Oramo, Artistic Partner of the Gürzenich Orchestra, understands the music of the north between fire and ice like no other: his recordings of Carl Nielsen's and Jean Sibelius' symphonies are internationally acclaimed and award-winning. In Nielsen's Symphony No. 5, the horrors of the First World War resonate, a snare drum mercilessly drives the dynamics forward and sets the direction of the march. Only the finale turns into a fiery celebration of joie de vivre.

Immediately after its composition, the tone poem Finlandia became probably the best-known work by Jean Sibelius, who himself called this grandiose declaration of his homeland's independence from Russia's tyranny a "battle song and victory hymn".

"It's a piece of wood that shrieks at the top and hums at the bottom!" It is hard to believe that a composer who characterized the sound of the cello in this way wrote one of the most famous cello concertos: Antonín Dvořák succeeded in creating a masterpiece full of fire and deeply touching melancholy. In the "New World", in New York, he longs for the sounds of his Bohemian homeland and mourns the early death of his childhood sweetheart, to whom he pays moving tribute in the Cello Concerto. The young Finnish cellist Senja Rummunkainen, who is now in demand worldwide, immerses herself in the incomparable beauty of this bravura piece and gives goose bumps with her playing.

Program

Jean Sibelius
Finlandia
Symphonic poem op. 26
1899/1900

Antonín Dvořák
Concerto for cello and orchestra in B minor op. 104
1894

Carl Nielsen
Symphony No. 5 op. 50
1920-22

Instrumentation

Senja Rummukainen Violoncello
Sakari Oramo Conductor

Price information:

Tickets for young adults up to 29 for €8 Prices €60/48/38/26/20/12