St. Johanneskyrkan Meet Mozart with Gothenburg Symphony

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Overture to Le nozze di Figaro The usual Italian overture division was fast-slow-fast, but Mozart's overture to The Marriage of Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro) from 1786 can be characterized as fast-fast-fast. It may seem strange, but Mozart instead works with dynamics: the fast pulse of the strings at the bottom is more or less accentuated, and complementary slow movements in the woodwinds add variety and contrast to the hectic flow. The task of an overture is to create anticipation and tension and to give a foreshadowing of the dramatic action of the opera. Also it can be good for the musicians to get a proper warm-up before the singers come on stage. With the high tempo, Mozart signals joy and comedy, but the darkened tones also let us know that this is an opera buffa with serious elements. The main plot is one of the most common in Mozart's time: The fight between the lord - the count - and the servant, where the latter ultimately draws the longest straw. Once the overture's humming flight has come to an end, the curtain rises and we meet the servant Figaro and his fiancee Susana in the midst of finding the best place for their new bed - they are soon to be married.

Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) PEER GYNT Suit nr 1 - Åse's death, Anitra´s dance Henrik Ibsen's drama Peer Gynt was written as early as 1867. Grieg provided it with 23 musical intros with a total running time of about one and a half hours! This is probably the reason why you so rarely get to hear the music in its entirety. Grieg composed suites so that at least some of the music could continue to be played even after the theater performances ceased. Peer Gynt is an adventure drama about the dreamer Peer, who fantasizes away from the poverty of his upbringing, and who travels around dressed in different roles, letting down everyone around him. The third act takes place in the wilderness and one of the few musical sections in this act is called Deep in the Woods. In the fourth scene, we find one of the most poignant moments in theater and music history, Åse's death. It is a melodrama, an episode where Peer, full of imagination and love, and with the help of music, together with the mare Åsedin, gallops his mother Åse into the kingdom of heaven. It is a mourning march that progresses simply, calmly and relentlessly like death itself with its simultaneously providential and intensely painful sounds. The fourth act actually takes place on the north coast of Africa. It's been 25 years and conman Peer is making deals with international pranksters. All the oriental movements belong here with their monotony, their many percussions and rhythmic enchantment. And it is the Bedouin chief's daughter herself who dances to the string accompaniment in Anitra's dance.

The Gothenburg Symphony was formed in 1905 and today consists of 109 musicians. The orchestra's base is Göteborgs Konserthus, the funk gem at Götaplatsen that has gathered music lovers since 1935. Since the 2017-2018 season, Santtu-Matias Rouvali has been Chief conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony. Since the 2019-2020 season, Barbara Hannigan is Principal guest conductor. We are also a proud partner of Barbara Hannigan's Equilibrium mentoring program focusing on young singers at the start of their careers. Wilhelm Stenhammar was the orchestra's chief conductor from 1907 to 1922. He gave the orchestra a strong Nordic profile and invited colleagues Carl Nielsen and Jean Sibelius to the orchestra. Under the direction of conductor Neeme Järvi from 1982-2004, the orchestra made a series of international tours as well as a hundred disc recordings and established themselves among Europe's leading orchestras. In 1996, the Swedish Riksdag appointed the Gothenburg Symphony as Sweden's National Orchestra. In recent decades, the orchestra has had prominent chief conductors such as Mario Venzago and Gustavo Dudamel, following Kent Nagano as Principal Guest conductor. Anna-Karin Larsson is CEO and artistic director, Gustavo Dudamel honorary conductor and Neeme Järvi chief conductor emeritus. The orchestra's owner is the Västra Götaland Region. The Gothenburg Symphony works regularly with conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Joana Carneiro, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Christian Zacharias and Anja Bihlmaier.

Joachim Gustafsson is music director of the Orquesta Filarmónica in Bogotá, Colombia, and established as one of the foremost Scandinavian conductors of his generation. He works regularly with the major Swedish orchestras as well as with the Copenhagen Philharmonic, Arthur Rubinstein Philharmonic in Lodz, Odense Symphony Orchestra, Aarhus Symphony Orchestra and South Jutland Symphony Orchestra. Gustafsson is also a regular guest conductor at the Danish National Opera where, among other things, he revived the opera Cleopatra by the Danish-Italian late romantic composer August Enna, which is also available on Da Capo Records. Other productions include The Portrait of Dorian Gray by Thomas Agerfeldt-Olesen. Together with the pianist Niklas Sivelöv and the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá, he is recording the complete Beethoven piano concertos. Other recording projects include symphonies by Victor Bendix and orchestral music by Carl Nielsen, Hans Abrahamsen, Niklas Sivelöv and Martin Stauning. Together with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra, he has recorded symphonies no. 1 and 3 by Victor Bendix on Da Capo and Geoffrey Gordon's concerto for bass clarinet entitled Prometheus (Toccata Classics). Joachim Gustafsson made his opera debut with Verdi's Otello in 2004 at the Royal Opera in Stockholm. He is also the artistic director of the Tommie Haglund Festival in Halmstad. In 2022 he toured Sweden with OFB, the first appearance of a South American philharmonic orchestra in Scandinavia.