Beethoven and Sibelius

It was composed at the beginning of the last century in the hot, sunny regions of Italy, but the triumphant success of Jean Sibelius' Second Symphony was celebrated in his homeland of Finland in the far north. This was also because his countrymen heard in it a kind of manifesto against the tsarist yoke. To this day, especially the slow movement is a kind of national anthem for the Finns, and the finale has something "magical that puts us in ecstasy like the shaman's magic drum," as a compatriot of Sibelius wrote. We have combined this symphony with a work that was created about 100 years earlier and still breathes a little of Mozart's spirit. In his First Piano Concerto, Beethoven had already developed his own means, for example, he used clarinets, trumpets, and timpani for the first time ever in a piano concerto. Boris Giltburg presents himself with this masterpiece for the first time as our Artist in Residence.