Lise de la Salle, piano
Beethoven Orchestra Bonn
Rune Bergmann, conductor

Program:

• Einojuhani Rautavaara 1928-2016
  Cantus Arcticus - concerto for birdcalls and orchestra
• Edvard Grieg 1843-1907
  Concerto for piano and orchestra in A minor op. 16
• Carl Nielsen 1865-1931
  Symphony No. 4 op. 29 Das Unauslöschliche (Det Uudslukkelige)

19:15: Concert introduction with Tilmann Böttcher on stage

Music is life: Life in its purest form, happy and sad, deep and shallow, dramatic and poetic. This is what the Fourth Symphony by the Danish composer Carl Nielsen is about. There is no programme, says Nielsen, but the elementary components of life are found directly in the music, flowing through it. With the Norwegian conductor Rune Bergmann we travel to the (far) north: Besides Nielsen’s symphony, there is the Cantus Arcticus by the Finn Einojuhani Rautavaara and the famous piano concerto by the Norwegian Edvard Grieg. One often has the feeling of directly experiencing, tasting, seeing the landscapes of the North, their fresh colours, their traditions in music from the Scandinavian countries. And not only in pieces with such an obvious programmatic background as Rautavaara’s Cantus Arcticus, which is described in the subtitle as a concerto for birds and orchestra: Bird sounds are added to the sound of the instruments via tape. Spring voices of the birds in the marshland, the melancholy song of the lark, the longing calls of migrating swans … Grieg’s piano concerto tells us of cheerful folk festivals, of the rough landscape of the fjords, of the longing for light and warmth – or perhaps just of music? Which brings us back to Nielsen, to the powerful, moving sound paintings of his Fourth Symphony: The indelible – does music only tell us about music here too? Rune Bergmann and the French star pianist Lise de la Salle invite us to find out in concert.