Santtu conducts Clyne, Brahms and Dvořák

Programme

Santtu conducts two pinnacles of the Romantic repertoire, and a vivid new piece by the Philharmonia’s Featured Composer Anna Clyne.

Anna Clyne’s Color Field takes its inspiration from a Mark Rothko painting Orange, Red, Yellow, the experience of synaesthesia, where certain colours are linked with particular pitches or keys, and the fiery rhythms of Serbian folk music.

Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 is in the hands of pianist Lars Vogt, a renowned interpreter of Brahms acclaimed for his “deeply lyrical” playing (New York Times). At the height of his powers, Brahms explored many moods in this four-movement work, by turns tempestuous, soulful and brilliantly virtuosic.

Dvořák, too, was already revered as a master of his craft when he was commissioned to write his Seventh Symphony, premiered in London in 1885. It’s full of lyrical Bohemian spirit and bursting with melodies. Tender personal moments contrast with passages of intense drama – Dvořák wrote that his symphony’s themes were “Love, God and Fatherland”.