Kian Soltani is one of the Elbphilharmonie’s audience favourites and, since his season as Portrait Artist in 2025/26, has become a familiar presence at the venue. He now returns with Schumann’s Cello Concerto, a highly virtuosic work that holds special significance for him.
With Soltani come the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and its chief conductor Ryan Bancroft, themselves regular guests at the Elbphilharmonie, bringing a distinctly Nordic programme. The concert opens with Sibelius’s »Tapiola«, a journey through the deep, mythical forests of Finland. Carl Nielsen’s Second Symphony, by contrast, portrays the four fundamental temperaments of human nature: choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic and sanguine.
Kian Soltani hears two very different personalities reflected in Schumann’s Cello Concerto. They are the composer’s alter egos: on the one hand Florestan – extrovert and impulsive – and on the other Eusebius – reserved and melancholic. The challenge of the work, Soltani explains, lies in moving at lightning speed between its intimate and explosive moments in dialogue with the orchestra. The young star cellist has already recorded this favourite work, demonstrating just how effortless and lyrical it can sound.
PERFORMERS
Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra orchestra
Kian Soltani violoncello
Ryan Bancroft conductor
PROGRAM
Jean Sibelius
Tapiola
Robert Schumann
Concerto für Violoncello and Orchestra in A minor, Op. 129
- Interval -
Carl Nielsen
Symphony No. 2, Op. 16 »The Four Temperaments«
