Programme

Jean Sibelius
Symphony No. 4 A minor, op. 63

Interval

Wilhelm Stenhammar
Intermezzo from "Sången", op. 44

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Symphony No. 3 A minor, op. 56 (Scottish)

Herbert Blomstedt, Conductor

Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks

Programme Booklet

Download Programme Booklet (in German)

“Conducting is a good profession to grow old in, because it’s always a challenge, and you need challenges when you get older.” That’s what Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt confided a year ago in a newspaper interview. And it must be true, for though he’s about to turn 92 he pursues his longstanding collaboration with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra with unwavering vitality and aplomb. This time he will present a programme entirely in A minor, with Jean Sibelius’s austere Fourth Symphony standing alongside Mendelssohn’s dour “Scottish” Symphony, inspired by his journey to the Highlands in 1829. A decade later the young Mendelssohn transformed the misty landscapes and typical folk music of Scotland into his Third Symphony. Still, the turbulent finale ends in an exhilarating A major. Sibelius’s little-known Fourth is leagues away from such glimmers of comfort. Here the composer ventures far into the terrain of the avant-garde as tense harmonies encounter severe chamber-like textures and a darkly glowing maelstrom spreads an atmosphere of brooding gloom. Between these two A minor masterpieces Blomstedt has placed one of his personal favourites: the celebratory interlude from Sången, a late-romantic cantata by the Swedish composer Wilhelm Stenhammar.

Photo Gallery

Here are some impressions of the rehearsals with Herbert Blomstedt.