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TO THE MEMORY OF AN ANGEL

Alban Berg’s violin concerto is neither harsh nor cold; on the contrary, it is a powerful and moving work with a striking sadness and sensitivity. Then again, he wrote it ”to the memory of an angel”, a painful echo of emptiness. In contrast: Brahms’s animated, almost exuberant third symphony. It was written when Brahms was fifty years of age and unmarried, but is imbued with the life motto of the forthright Brahms “Frei aber froh”, free but happy.


SWEDISH RADIO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

dot 2019/2020

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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.

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.

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Tyska violinisten Veronika Eberle hyllas för sin sällsynta balans och mognad i sitt musicerande, egenskaper som tagit henne till flera av världens främsta orkestrar, konsertscener och internationella festivaler. Genombrottet kom när hon som sextonåring framförde Beethovens violinkonsert tillsammans med Berliner Philharmoniker och Simon Rattle under påskfestivalen i Salzburg 2006. Sedan dess har hon arbetat med dirigenter som Paavo Järvi, Alan Gilbert, Kent Nagano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin och James Gaffigan och med orkestrar som London Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, New York Philharmonic, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig och Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam. Eberle spelar på en Stradivarius från 1693 utlånad av Reinhold Würth Musikstiftung.

Approximate concert length: 1 h 40 min (with intermission)

UPBEAT: Thursday, January 23 at 6 pm with Pernilla Eskilsdotter, who talks about the second of the three concerts she has chosen for her own concert series, a selection made with curiosity and love. Before this concert she talks about how she herself interprets that an angel is heard in a violin concerto.

UPBEAT: Saturday 25 January at 14.00 with Tanja Kaitaniemi who tells about the works being played at today’s concert.