Dortmund: Nielsen & Sibelius with Ryan Bancroft

Programme

Ryan Bancroft leads the Philharmonia in Nordic music by Nielsen and Sibelius.

Gramophone’s Young Artist of the Year 2022, Johan Dalene, is the soloist in Nielsen’s virtuosic Violin Concerto. Written in two movements and filled with demanding and daring writing for the soloist, Dalene – who won the 2019 Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition with this concerto – is the perfect interpreter for this evening’s concert.

Lemminkäinen is the colourful hero of the Kalevala, an epic of Finnish folklore. He makes an ideal subject for Sibelius, a leading light in the movement for Finnish independence. Sibelius’s four tone poems follow four contrasting legends, in this epic of Finnish musical writing.

Opening the concert is Beethoven’s Leonore No. 3 Overture, from his only opera Fidelio. It encapsulates the opera’s journey from prison and despair to hope and freedom, in music full of drama and emotion.

Esa-Pekka Salonen has tested positive for Covid and is unable to conduct Saturday’s concert. He sends regrets to his Dortmund friends and Philharmonia family. The Philharmonia is very grateful to Ryan Bancroft for stepping in at short notice. Bancroft is a favourite with the Philharmonia’s musicians, and his most recent performance with them was acclaimed as ‘fearless and fiery’ (The Guardian). You can read more about him here.