Santtu conducts Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony

Programme

Santtu-Matias Rouvali, soon to take over as our Principal Conductor, and Carlos Ferreira, our Principal Clarinet, join forces in a triple bill of undisputed classics.

Beethoven’s Second symphony stands on the cusp, where Classical poise and grace meet a more personal and passionate Romantic sensibility. Composed in Heiligenstadt in 1802, the symphony’s confident tone belies Beethoven’s struggle to come to terms with his advancing deafness.

Tchaikovsky’s Fourth, on the other hand, is a product of Romanticism at its height. A portentous horn fanfare opens its forty spellbinding minutes, bursting with deceptively simple melodies that become the building blocks for high emotional drama.

At the heart of the programme is Mozart’s wonderful Clarinet Concerto, composed for his friend and sometime gambling companion Anton Stadler. “Truly your instrument has so soft and lovely a tone that nobody with a heart could resist it”, wrote Mozart. And surely he would have said the same of Carlos Ferreira.