Julian Rachlin Plays Sibelius

Nordic melancholy with Julian Rachlin and the power of Shostakovich—the Frankfurt Radio Symphony returns for its second evening, led by Alain Altinoglu.

A dream about snowy Finland, where a nymph emerges from one of the country’s thousands of lakes. This is how one could describe Jean Sibelius’ Violin Concerto, a symphonic poem that premiered in the same year as Dvořák’s most famous opera, Rusalka. While equally poetic, Sibelius is timid in the more cautiously constructed melodies, but he also leads all of them to a positive ending. The composition seems so intimate, it is as if every tone of the violin addresses each listener individually. And if the violin player is Julian Rachlin, whose career began at age fourteen – after he won the Concertino Praga and Eurovision competitions – with an invitation from Lorin Maazel to appear as a guest with the London Symphony Orchestra, we can expect an extraordinary experience.

In contrast, the ominous energy of the first notes of Dmitri Shostakovich’s music points out that his Symphony No. 8 follows his famous Leningrad Symphony. Symphony No. 8 was also written during the Second World War and is perhaps even better and more clearly constructed than the Leningrad Symphony. Its journey from darkness to light and victory and its key of C minor recall Beethoven’s Fate. The composer seems to have infused the lucid finale with the belief that victory means more than defending oneself and driving out the aggressors – it also means showing generosity and compassion. Light must shine for everyone in the end. And it will be sparked by conductor Alain Altinoglu, who leads one of the oldest and most respected German radio orchestras, an artist who regularly conducts the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and, more recently, also the Czech Philharmonic.

Ticket prices: 490 – 3 890 CZK