Guesting ensembles

The award-winning Norwegian-Swedish cellist Amalie Stalheim has an international career at the highest level. She has been a soloist with a range of top orchestras and has played chamber music with stars such as Janine Jansen, Yo-Yo Ma, and Leif Ove Andsnes.

Together with the visiting Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, she is the soloist in Prokofiev's magnificent Sinfonia concertante for cello and orchestra. In an almost magical way, the cello's lyrical qualities are exploited, and the music is also charged with power and drama. The orchestra is led by the young French conductor Maxime Pascal, who has conducted a great deal of opera throughout Europe, including at La Scala in Milan.

Like Prokofiev, we consider Stravinsky to be one of the giants of the 20th century. Symphony in C was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and completed shortly after his escape to the USA in 1940. It was a difficult time. In addition to being in exile, Stravinsky had recently lost his first wife, and he himself had been treated for tuberculosis. However, the music sounds like an antidote: classically pure, playful, and rhythmically swinging.

Equally captivating rhythmically is the French composer Camille Pépin's evocative Laniakea, which opens the concert. Laniakea means "immense heaven" in Hawaiian and is the name of a gigantic star cluster that includes the Milky Way and our solar system. Pépin (born in 1990) has received considerable attention in recent years from a range of top European orchestras.

The Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra visits Konserthuset under the baton of its Chief Conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali. They are joined by the celebrated Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki, internationally acclaimed by both audiences and critics for his beautiful touch and boundless virtuosity.

Together, they present Frédéric Chopin's beloved First Piano Concerto. For Chopin, the piano always took centre stage. His nocturnes, études, mazurkas, polonaises, and impromptus have captivated listeners ever since he charmed audiences in the salons of Paris, or at the few concerts he gave during his all-too-short life. The orchestra plays a subordinate role even in the piano concerto – it is the soloist who shines with imaginative passages, beautiful bel canto melodies, and swirling dances.

Regarding what would become his final symphony, Tchaikovsky wrote in a letter to his brother Anatoly: "I am now completely absorbed in the new work and find it difficult to tear myself away from it. I believe it will be one of my best works. I must finish it as soon as possible." The symphony indeed became one of the great musical masterpieces, filled with profound darkness and exalted beauty.