8. Philharmonic Concert

After Steven Sloane conducted our ‘American’ 7th Philharmonic Concert, we are now returning to Europe with him. Such leaps across the Atlantic are par for the course for the American-Israeli conductor. Sloane was General Music Director of the Bochum Symphony Orchestra from 1994 to 2021. He was a member of the board of directors of ‘RUHR 2010 – European Capital of Culture’ and has guested with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and in Sydney and Tokyo, to name but a few. He has conducted the most important orchestras in Israel and was musical director of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. In recent years, he has also enjoyed great success at the Frankfurt Opera and the Vienna Volksoper.

Under his baton, we will perform Gustav Mahler’s 9th Symphony. Alban Berg called it “the most magnificent thing Mahler ever wrote”. Here, Mahler composes as if he were not himself, as if, in Arnold Schönberg’s words, a hidden author were speaking through him. The usual tempo sequence of the movements is almost reversed. Fixed structures and harmonic relationships seem to dissolve. Mahler also uses an orchestra that is small by his standards. Also striking are the sighing motifs and the fragile passages, akin to chamber music, that this ‘new’ Mahler invents.

Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major is effectively the extroverted counterpart. He created passionately flowing music, with jazz-related themes lending it a wonderful dynamism. This piano concerto is one of the showpieces of great concert pianists – and is also a favourite of our »Artist in Residence«.