Lise Davidsen’s recording of Strauss’s Four Last Songs was showered with accolades. But there is really only one way to hear this magnificent and unmatched voice from Norway, and that is live in the concert hall or the opera house. Here, Davidsen makes a welcome return to Bergen for Strauss’s last reminiscence of life and love, joined by regular collaborator Edward Gardner.
Not much can follow Strauss’s Four Last Songs, but Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 4 can. This epic symphonic tussle with fate veers from personal crisis towards unbridled, ebullient joy. Opening the concert are the ethereal and unmistakable sounds of the Hungarian composer György Ligeti. His Melodien, written in 1971, is an astonishing unification of melodiousness and mechanics.