Two pieces which both speak to the innermost feelings complete this season’s concert series of the Royal Danish Orchestra.

The last concert of the Royal Danish Orchestra’s concert series is also a meeting of two very different composers – Shostakovich and Brahms. They lived in different times and their music has very different and unique sounds, but one thing ties them and the two pieces of this concert together: They both give dramatic insights into the joys and sorrows of the two composers.

Shostakovich lived most of his life in the shadow of the Soviet regime. When he turned 60 in 1966, he was a man marked by the strain of decades of psychological and political stress, something which can be heard in his music. In his Cello Concerto no. 2, the atmosphere is at once moving, dark and sinister, expressing the sadness, which had settled on the composer, who could not set his deepest artistic emotions free.

Brahms did not have to live with political censorship. His limitations came from within, as throughout his life, he felt that he was standing in the shadow of the great master, Beethoven. Twelve years it took him to finish his first symphony; a piece, which – if compared in technical expertise and emotional content with a work of drama – may be viewed as being on a par with Shakespeare’s King Lear or Goethe’s Faust.

It is the german born cellist Jan Vogler who will play the Shostakovich cello concerto at this concert.

Jan Vogler’s distinguished career has seen him perform with renowned conductors and internationally acclaimed orchestras around the world, such as New York Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and London Philharmonic Orchestra. His strong artistic foundation has allowed him to explore the boundaries of his sound, creating an ongoing dialogue also with contemporary composers and performers.

Programme:

Carl Nielsen: Maskerade Overture

Dmitri Shostakovich: Cello Concerto no.2, op.126

Interval

Johannes Brahms: Symphony no.1 in C minor, op.68

Encores

Johannes Brahms: Hungarian Dance no.5

Franz Schubert: Rosamunde, D.797