Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz's delightful and driving overture sets the tone for this evening's concert, which has a Nordic feel.
Sibelius’s last symphony is one of the musical wonders of the last century - a score born of personal struggle that manages to be profound, majestic and humbling. In its short, single-movement span, the symphony appears to live a whole life. Here Thomas Søndergård combines the Seventh Symphony that seems to flow like mighty river with its immediate predecessor, the Sixth, a score that appears to freewheel like a bicycle careering down a hill.
Alessandro Carbonare steps into the mischevious shoes of Carl Nielsen’s wickedly entertaining Clarinet Concerto - the composer’s attempt to capture the essence of the instrument he described as ‘warm hearted and completely hysterical, gentle as balm and screaming as a streetcar on poorly lubricated rails’.