Beethoven’s Heroic Symphony

Event has already taken place. Gothenburg Symphony, Han-Na Chang conductor, Anna Christensson piano

Concert length: 2 h incl. intermission Scene: Stora salen

330-490 SEK Student 165-245 SEK

Wednesday 13 March 2019 19.30 — Event has already taken place

Recorded for GSOplay
Thursday 14 March 2019 19.30 — Event has already taken place

Event has already taken place

Beethoven dedicated his Heroic Symphony to freedom seeker and revolutionary Napoleon Bonaparte, but retracted the dedication, indignant, when Napoleon appointed himself emperor and set Europe alight: “So he is no more than a common mortal…”

But the music retained its revolutionary power and its humanistic pathos in which joy and grief (the tragic funeral march) eventually transforms into the gigantic expression of a new era. The music of our era is headed in many different directions.

Gothenburg composer Gösta Nystroem had his feet planted in tradition, and his gaze fixed on the future. His Concerto Ricercare for piano and orchestra is rhythmically driven and curious; the “ricercare” of the baroque period means roughly “to seek,” and Nystroem probably sought where he stood: his time as a student in Paris, with influences from Stravinsky and Poulenc, for instance.

Added to this is a dear introduction from a completely different time – Mozart’s Uverture to Figaro’s wedding.

The conductor who masteres all these characteristic music styles is Han-Na Chang, a former world-class cellist who has now also established a career as a conductor. Soloist is Anna Christensson, one of the foremost Swedish pianists in her generation.