HARDING & STRAUSS’ AN ALPINE SYMPHONY
Robert Schumann claimed never to have spent as much energy and care on his music as he did on his evocative incidental music for Manfred, based on Lord Byron’s dramatic poem. Brahms was impressed and named it Schumann’s best work. Another evocative piece of music is Schumann’s Nachtlied for choir and orchestra, composed in just a week. The finale consists of Richard Strauss’ majestic An Alpine Symphony – impressions from “a day’s walk” in the mountains.
Participants
The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra is a multiple-award-winning ensemble renowned for its high artistic standard and stylistic breadth, as well as collaborations with the world’s finest composers, conductors, and soloists. It regularly tours all over Europe and the world and has an extensive and acclaimed recording catalogue.
Daniel Harding has been Music Director of the SRSO since 2007, and since 2019 also its Artistic Director. His tenure will last throughout the 2024/2025 season. Two of the orchestra’s former chief conductors, Herbert Blomstedt and Esa-Pekka Salonen, have since been named Conductors Laureate, and continue to perform regularly with the orchestra.
The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra performs at Berwaldhallen, concert hall of the Swedish Radio, and is a cornerstone of Swedish public service broadcasting. Its concerts are heard weekly on the Swedish classical radio P2 and regularly on national public television SVT. Several concerts are also streamed on-demand on Berwaldhallen Play and broadcast globally through the EBU.
32 professional choristers make up the Swedish Radio Choir: a unique, dynamic instrument hailed by music-lovers and critics all over the world. The Swedish Radio Choir performs at Berwaldhallen, concert hall of the Swedish Radio, as well as on tours all over the country and the world. Also, they are heard regularly by millions of listeners on Swedish Radio P2, Berwaldhallen Play and globally through the EBU.
The award-winning Latvian conductor Kaspars Putniņš was appointed Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Choir in 2020. Since January 2019, its choirmaster is French orchestral and choral conductor Marc Korovitch, with responsibility for the choir’s vocal development.
The Swedish Radio Choir was founded in 1925, the same year as Sweden’s inaugural radio broadcasts, and gave its first concert in May that year. Multiple acclaimed and award-winning albums can be found in the choir’s record catalogue. Late 2023 saw the release of Kaspars Putniņš first album with the choir: Robert Schumann’s Missa sacra, recorded with organist Johan Hammarström.
Daniel Harding is Music and Artistic Director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, with whom in 2022 he celebrated his 15-year anniversary. In the 2014/2015 season, he devised and curated the celebrated Interplay Festival, featuring concerts and related inspirational talks with renowned artists and academics. As Artistic Director, he continues this type of influential programming. Harding is also Conductor Laureate of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with whom he has worked for over 20 years, and Music Director of Youth Music Culture, The Greater Bay Area in China. The 2024/2025 season will be his first as Music Director at the Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
Harding is a regular visitor to the world’s foremost orchestras, including the Wiener Philharmoniker, Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Staatskapelle Dresden and the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala. In the US, he has appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony. A renowned opera conductor, he has led acclaimed productions at the Teatro alla Scala Milan, Wiener Staatsoper, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, and at the Aix-en-Provence and Salzburg Festivals. He was Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris, the Anima Mundi festival of Pisa, and Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.
Daniel Harding tours regularly with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, performing at prestigious venues all over Europe and the world, and has recorded several acclaimed and award-winning albums with the orchestra. His tenure as Music and Artistic Director will last throughout the 2024/2025 season. “It is increasingly rare that the relationship between a conductor and an orchestra not only lasts for more than a decade, but keeps growing,” he says about working with the orchestra.
In 2002, Harding was awarded the title Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government, and in 2017 nominated to the position Officier des Arts et des Lettres. In 2012, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. In 2021, he was appointed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Daniel Harding grew up in Oxford, England, and played trumpet before taking up conducting in his late teens. He is also, since 2016, a qualified airline pilot.
Malin Broman is the first concertmaster of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra since 2008. She served as artistic director of Musica Vitae in 2015–2020, premiering over 20 works and touring and recording extensively. In 2019, she succeeded Sakari Oramo as artistic director of the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra.
As a guest leader, she has been invited to perform with ensembles such as the London Symphony Orchestra, Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra. As combined soloist and leader she has performed with the Tapiola Sinfonietta, Nordic Chamber Orchestra, Trondheim Soloists and ACO Collective. Soloist highlights include performances with the Gothenburg Symphony, Copenhagen Phil, BBC Scottish Symphony, Academy of St Martin-in-the Fields, and the Swedish Radio Orchestra, working with such conductors as Neeme Järvi, Andrew Manze and Daniel Harding.
In recent years, she has premiered concertos by Daniel Börtz, Britta Byström, Andrea Tarrodi and Daniel Nelson. She has recorded over 30 albums, including concertos by Carl Nielsen and Britta Byström. Recent releases include an album with music by Laura Netzel, and Stockholm Diary with the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra. Her recording of Mendelssohn’s double concerto together with pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips and Musica Vitae was Grammy nominated in 2019.
She received much acclaim for her recording of Felix Mendelssohn’s string octet in the spring of 2020, where she played all eight parts herself. She has since made two similar recordings: Britta Byström’s octet A Room of One’s Own, and Johan Halvorsens Passacaglia recorded with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra’s solo contrabassist Rick Stotijn.
In 2001, she founded the Change Music Festival in Kungsbacka. She is also co-founder of Kungsbacka Piano Trio, with which she had played more than 700 concerts all ove the world, and of Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble which is made up of some of Europe’s most brilliant chamber musicians.
In 2008, Malin was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. The Kungsbacka Piano Trio has received the prestigious Interpret Prize of the Royal Academy of Music. In 2019, she was awarded H.M. The King’s Medal. She is currently Professor of Viola at Edsberg Institute of Music in Stockholm. She plays a 1709 Stradivarius violin and a 1861 Bajoni viola, both generously loaned by the Järnåker Foundation.
Chief conductor of the Jeune Choeur de Paris, he started a collaboration with the SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart in 2013 (including a recording of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé), and also works regularly with the Chœur de Radio-France and the Choeur Accentus since 2014, for tours, radio performances, recordings, preparations and A Cappella concerts. He collaborates with many personalities, such as Sir Simon Rattle, Gustavo Dudamel, Daniele Gatti, Louis Langrée, Stéphane Denève, Daniel Harding, Laurence Equilbey, L. G. Alarcon… He has also conducted the WDR Rundfunkchor in 2016. In July 2016, he has prepared both the SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart and the NDR Chor for Berlioz’s Romeo et Juliette. In 2017, he has participate to the opening of the Seine Musical conducting the choir accentus and in 2018, he starts a collaboration with the Croatian Radio Choir. Korovitch works for many festivals: the Mozartwoche in Salzburg, Recontres Musicales d’Evian, the Festival de Radio-France in Montpellier or the festival Mozart in New York.
Approximate concert length: 2 h 30 min (including intermission)
Listen to the live broadcast of the concert programme from Vienna on the Swedish Radio P2, Sunday 19 March at 7.30 pm. Participating choir in the Vienna concert is the Wiener Singverein.
Tickets
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