Ewigkeit!

The evening circles around the question of what lies beyond time and transience – leading from the clear expanses of the North to the sacred grandeur of late Romanticism.

Jean Sibelius wrote his Violin Concerto in 1903/04 and soon afterwards revised it thoroughly; the final version was heard in Berlin in 1905 under Richard Strauss. The composer had himself dreamed of becoming a violin virtuoso, and he accordingly makes great demands of the soloist. The work opens with a shimmer of muted strings, above which the violin intones a long-spanned, almost floating melody. Between Nordic coolness, passionate song in the slow movement and the dance-like, rugged finale, it ranks among the most compelling violin concertos of the 20th century.

Anton Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony was composed between 1881 and 1883 and, with its premiere in Leipzig in 1884, brought the long-overlooked composer his breakthrough. It opens with one of the most famous themes in the symphonic repertoire: from the tremolo of the strings, a sweeping melody rises in the cellos and violas. Bruckner wrote the Adagio in the foreboding of Richard Wagner’s death; with the Wagner tubas it unfolds a solemn, mourning sound that builds to a great climax. After the powerful Scherzo and the radiant finale, what remains is the impression of a work of transition between finitude and eternity, with great climaxes, wide spaces and quiet moments.