CONCERT REVIEW | Webern, Mahler, & Wagner | Philharmonia Orchestra/Kampe, Smith, Selig, Elder, & Salonen | Royal Albert Hall, London | "An overarching success, then, highlighting the excitement of the Salonen-Philharmonia magic"
United Kingdom: Philharmonia Orchestra, Anja Kampe (Soprano), Robert Dean Smith (Tenor), Franz-Josef Selig (Bass) & Esa-Pekka Salonen (Conductor). Reviewed at Royal Albert Hall, London on 9 August 2018.
BBC Proms 2018, Prom 36
Webern, Five Pieces For Orchestra, Op.10
Mahler, Symphony no. 10 in F sharp major: Adagio
Wagner, Die Walküre: Act 1
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| Esa-Pekka Salonen, © Benjamin Suomela |
...In a way, the evening’s programme was as Salonen as musical narratives could get. Given Salonen’s initial serialist idioms in his compositions, the fact that Webern, one of the forefathers of the technique, venerated Mahler and Wagner and that Mahler likewise was in awe of Wagner coloured the programme as a celebration of a lineage of Western musical thought, condensed under the baton of the Finnish composer-conductor.