Resplendent Strauss from Canellakis and the Wiener Symphoniker

Leif Ove Andsnes and Karina Canellakis

Leif Ove Andsnes, Karina Canellakis and the Vienna Symphony

By Mark Pullinger, 18 December 2025

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“lucid transitions between sections, shaping the score in long paragraphs”

Reviewed at Musikverein: Großer Saal, Vienna on 17 December 2025

Brahms, Piano Concerto no. 2 in B flat major, Op.83

Schumann, Vier Klavierstücke, Op.32 (no.3 Romanze)

Dvořák, The Noon Witch (Polednice), Symphonic poem, Op.108

Strauss R., Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration), Op.24

Leif Ove Andsnes, Piano

Vienna Symphony Orchestra

Karina Canellakis, Conductor

Wiener Symphoniker parties in style at the Concertgebouw

Clare Varney, 3rd November

Jan Lisiecki joins Petr Popelka and the touring Wiener Symphoniker at the Concertgebouw for Grieg's Piano Concerto.

****1

Stefan Herheim’s bold Fledermaus at MusikTheater an der Wien

Chanda VanderHart, 13th October

Herheim’s Fledermaus is a risky experiment that, miraculously, works – at least in a city that knows it so intimately.

****1

Grigorian and Akhmetshina dazzle in a secular Norma

Chanda VanderHart, 19th February

In a week where Vienna welcomes two new productions of Bellini's Norma, MusikTheater an der Wien sets a high bar with Vasily Barkhatov's staging.

****1

A spectacular Freischütz in Bregenz

Thomas Schacher, 19th July

At the Bregenz Festival, director Philpp Stölzl gives us a radical updating of the classic, with an interpretation many miles away from Weber.

***11

Love in time of the drug wars: a contemporary Tancredi at Bregenz

Orsolya Gyárfás, 18th July

Anna Goryachova and Mélissa Petit shine as doomed lovers Tancredi and Amenaide, while Jan Philipp Gloger's contemporary setting has much to offer, but doesn't quite nail the landing.

***11

Vienna goes to Hollywood: Oksana Lyniv conducts the Wiener Symphoniker

Mark Pullinger, 5th May

Erich Korngold and Arnold Schoenberg – Viennese emigrés in Hollywood – formed the unlikely pairing in the Ukrainian conductor's Konzerthaus programme.

***11

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Mark Pullinger

Mark has been a Bachtrack editor since 2014. He is also an experienced critic, writing hundreds of reviews for the site, as well as a freelancer writing for other magazines and newspapers. He also writes programme notes and blogs on Substack. Mark has a particular passion for the operas of Verdi as well as Russian and French repertoire. Outside the concert hall and opera house, Mark enjoys cooking and travel and is probably at his happiest let loose in a French patisserie or a Viennese coffee house.

Top brass: resplendent Strauss from Karina Canellakis and the Wiener Symphoniker