Barbican International Associate Residency: Gewandhausorchester Leipzig / Chailly

The second concert in the Gewandhaus Orchestra’s Barbican residency sets Mozart’s timeless poise against Strauss both familiar and rare. 

In Also Sprach Zarathustra, Richard Strauss set out to portray 'the whole of human history'. Performed by a great orchestra and conductor, it’s a gripping experience - and a striking foil to the rarely-heard Macbeth and Christian Tetzlaff’s typically intelligent approach to Mozart. 

Any chance to hear Macbeth is worth taking, and especially when it’s performed by a conductor with Chailly’s sense of the dramatic. Zarathustra, meanwhile, might begin with two of the most famous minutes in romantic music, but with performers this steeped in tradition, what follows will surely strike home even more profoundly. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Christian Tetzlaff will find universes in the most compact of forms.