Salonen: the finale I, with Yefim Bronfman

Programme

The Philharmonia’s first live London concerts for over a year are also Esa-Pekka Salonen’s last as the orchestra’s Principal Conductor.

As he reaches the end of his tenure, 13 years of extraordinary musical moments and groundbreaking projects, Salonen turns to the composers whose music has been a constant thread through his career: Beethoven, Stravinsky and Sibelius.

Beethoven’s First Symphony and Sibelius’s last stand at opposite ends of the Romantic era. As the nineteenth century dawns, Beethoven sets out on his lifelong mission to redefine what a symphony can be, with bold shifts of key, rhythm and dynamics. And Sibelius re-shapes the form completely to envelop us in a seamless single-movement work.

In his Piano Concerto No. 2, Liszt uses endlessly inventive transformations of melodic phrases to weave his musical magic. Yefim Bronfman’s larger-than-life personality and natural warmth make him an ideal interpreter, and he and Salonen have been frequent collaborators and firm friends for many years.

Salonen’s goodbye would not be complete without a piece by Stravinsky, one of his great loves. We could wish for no better guide through the distinctive, mystical soundworld of Symphonies of Wind Instruments.