Ligeti’s Violin Concerto

The orchestra’s musicians occasionally perform as soloists. Since 2019, Seohee Min has been one of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s concertmasters, and she has now made the incredibly bold decision to perform Ligeti’s daunting violin concerto from 1992. The work is challenging, with some original sounds from the soloist and orchestra alike, but it is also warmly lyrical and expressive. 2023 marks the 100th anniversary of György Ligeti’s birth (1923–2006).

The modern violin concerto is framed by German and French romantic music, led by French Pierre Bleuse, in his debut with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. Bleuse is chief conductor of the Danish Odense Symphony Orchestra and Polar Music Prize-winning Ensemble Intercontemporain. 

The sensual prelude to the opera Tristan und Isolde is often performed together with the final scene, Isolde’s Love Death. Wagner revolutionised the music here, with its weightless, floating harmonies. Ernest Chausson was particularly moved, and used to travel to the Wagner mecca of Bayreuth to hear Wagner’s operas. Chausson’s stylish – and only – symphony offers a taste of how he transformed these impressions using his own French dialect.