Conductor Teodor Currentzis seeks out extremes – and finds them in music. To this end, he regularly selects gripping works whose intensity brings out the full expressive power of his self-founded orchestra, Utopia. This time, the journey moves from the overwhelming force of Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony to the delicate yet deeply moving Violin Concerto by Alban Berg, performed by the virtuosic violinist Vilde Frang.
In his Symphony No. 1, which, as Mahler once said, »burst out of him like a mountain torrent«, the composer weaves together sounds of nature, folk tunes and symphonic tradition into a visionary masterpiece – at one point even giving it the programmatic title »Titan«. Few works in music history respond with such subtlety, fragility and emotional warmth to the fate of a loved one as Berg’s Violin Concerto. Dedicated »to the memory of an angel«, it was written in honour of Manon Gropius, the daughter of Alma Mahler and Walter Gropius, who died at the age of 19 from polio.
PERFORMERS
Utopia orchestra
Vilde Frang violin
Teodor Currentzis conductor
PROGRAM
Alban Berg
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra »To the Memory of an Angel«
- Interval -
Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 1 in D major
