Cristian Măcelaru & Alban Gerhardt

Programme

Benjamin Britten
Peter Grimes. Four sea interludes, op. 33a

Edward Elgar
Concerto for violoncello and orchestra E minor, op. 85

Interval

Ralph Vaughan Williams
Symphony No. 4 F minor

Cristian Măcelaru, Conductor

Alban Gerhardt, Cello

Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks

Programme Booklet

Download Programme Booklet (in German)

Encores:
Thursday: Johann Sebastian Bach – Suite No. 6 in D major for cello solo, BWV 1012. Prelude
Friday: Johann Sebastian Bach – Suite No. 6 in D major for cello solo, BWV 1012. Sarabande

In 1990 the Berlin cellist Alban Gerhardt won a second prize at the ARD Competition in Munich; 18 years later he performed the Brahms Double Concerto with Lisa Batiashvili and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. High time for another meeting with this charismatic musician! This time he will play Edward Elgar’s immortal swan song, the Cello Concerto, a work steeped in melancholy and nostalgia. The young Rumanian-born conductor Cristian Măcelaru, who skyrocketed to fame after moving to America, has turned the occasion into an all-British programme. The pièce de resistance is a work rarely heard in our climes: Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Fourth Symphony. With its shrill dissonances, jagged rhythms and searing emotions, this expressive masterpiece of 1935 makes a strong statement even today. And to open the evening Măcelaru, a highly esteemed guest with the Bavarian RSO, has chosen the evocative Four Sea Interludes from Benjamin Britten’s successful early opera Peter Grimes, where the churning sea urgently mirrors the title character’s agitated mind.

Photo Gallery

Here are some impressions of the rehearsals with Cristian Măcelaru and Alban Gerhardt.

Cristian Măcelaru and concertmaster Radoslaw Szulc.

Alban Gerhardt & Cristian Măcelaru