Featured Artists
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Philippe Tondre
Ricardo Morales
Daniel Matsukawa
Jennifer Montone
In its rave review of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s 2024 concerts with the Orchestra, the Philadelphia Inquirer praised his extraordinary ability to draw inspired performances from the musicians: “stunningly successful, the connection is strong … astonishing.” Salonen returns to conduct Bruckner’s majestic Fourth Symphony, a musical event not to be missed.
Famed conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen has ardent fans—composers, musicians, audience members, critics, and more—around the world. The New York Times described him as “one of the most open-minded, open-eared and fundamentally cool artists in classical music … beloved and respected across the field.”
In this program, Salonen leads a work that changed his life and set his path. After hearing Bruckner’s lyrical Fourth Symphony on the radio as a child, he said “maybe I should become a musician, if music can be like this.”
Bruckner left many clues to the inspiration for this symphony, describing such images as a medieval city at daybreak, a religious procession, dashing horses, the tension and release of a thunderstorm … all of which are revealed to the listener as this magnificent work pours out.
Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante is shrouded in mystery, with many scholars over the years debating whether in fact Mozart wrote it. But there’s no mystery in the charm of this elegant, melodic work, especially in the hands of the four Philadelphia Orchestra principal musicians featured here as soloists: Philippe Tondre, Ricardo Morales, Daniel Matsukawa, and Jennifer Montone.
Program
Mozart
Sinfonia concertante, for winds and orchestra
Bruckner Symphony No. 4 (“Romantic”)
Symphony No. 4 (“Romantic”)