Recording from 05. Sep 2024

Livestream Season Opening

The transmission starts at 19.25 CEST

Principal Guest Conductor Sir Mark Elder opens the subscription season at the Grieg Hall with Claude Debussy’s masterpiece of musical impressionism, La Mer.

In the French composer’s glistening, undulating depiction of the sea at three times of day we hear his manifesto for musical colour, sensuality and fragile beauty laid out before our ears.

Jean Sibelius was thinking just as deeply about texture and translucence when he came to write his third symphony - the work in which the Finnish composer reflects a personal ecological awakening in the purifying key of C major. Elder has always had a particular way with this symphony’s seamless and inevitable flow of complementary energies, after which he brings us something completely different.

Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos, written nearly 30 years after La Mer, sets out to dazzle and entertain with styles that veer from Stravinsky to the music hall, all underpinned by witty rhythms and biting musical satire. Tackling the solo parts are the Jussen brothers, a dazzling pianistic double act from Holland.

Foto: Marco Borggreve

Related concert recordings at Bergenphilive:

Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 1
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 3
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 6 
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 7
Jean Sibelius: Valse triste
Jean Sibelius: Andante festivo
Jean Sibelius: Luonnotar
Jean Sibelius: Violin concerto
Francis Poulenc: Sinfonietta