Harding meets Janine Jansen
Multi-award-winning Janine Jansen interprets Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto, his final work in which he, in the fashion of a true master, unites the pioneering twelve-tone music of the 20th century with traditional harmonics. The concert is a marvellous example of Berg’s ability to imbue a seemingly strict and mathematical composition method with emotion and humanity. Daniel Harding and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra also presents Beethoven’s classic and epoch-making Symphony No. 3, Eroica.
“To the memory of an angel.” Deeply affected by the death of 18-year-old Manon Gropius, the Austrian composer Alban Berg composed his expressive and sensual violin concerto, commissioned before the tragic event by the American violinist Louis Krasner in early 1935. Manon was the beautiful and talented daughter of Alma Mahler and the architect, Walter Gropius, whom Alma married upon Gustav Mahler’s death.
The concerto, which is divided into two parts, is partly composed in an advanced twelve-tone technique, but Berg has also inserted an Austrian folk song and a chorale that Bach made use of in his Cantata No. 60, Es ist genug. Berg, who was a student of Arnold Schoenberg’s and belonged to the so-called Second Viennese School, got the idea for the chorale whilst composing the piece. To his surprise, he discovered that its first four tones corresponded to the last four tones of the twelve-tone series on which the concerto was constructed.
The violin concerto’s sonorous sensualism and remarkable expressiveness has made it one of Alban Berg’s most accessible and popular works. It was also to become his final opus, after having put aside his work on the unfinished opera, Lulu. After Berg’s premature death on Christmas Eve 1935, Louis Krasner’s violin concerto was completed in Barcelona on April 19, 1936. In the first part of the concerto, Berg, according to music researcher Willi Reich, who is an expert on the Second Viennese School, has “tried to translate the young girl’s essence into musical terms”. In the second part, Berg describes the impending catastrophe and the possibility of salvation. Janine Jansen has previously made several acclaimed performances of Berg’s Violin Concerto and considers it to be one of her personal favourites.
Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E Flat Major, Eroica, was composed in 1803 and can be said to represent the break between Viennese classicism and romanticism. None of Beethoven’s symphonies, with the exception of the ninth, is as shrouded in myth, interpreted and politically exploited as the Eroica, which in a way is the starting point for the more subjective sounds of the nascent romanticism. Even the first movement, with its vast thematic adaptation, blew apart all the supposed limits of measurement and balance of its time. Beethoven composed the symphony as a tribute to Napoleon, but when Napoleon appointment himself Emperor of the French, Beethoven removed his name from the title page. The work was instead dedicated to “il sovvenire di un grande Uomo”, the memory of a great man – who could also be Beethoven himself.
Text: Henry Larsson
Participants
The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra is a multiple-award-winning ensemble renowned for its high artistic standard and stylistic breadth, as well as collaborations with the world’s finest composers, conductors, and soloists. It regularly tours all over Europe and the world and has an extensive and acclaimed recording catalogue.
Daniel Harding has been Music Director of the SRSO since 2007, and since 2019 also its Artistic Director. His tenure will last throughout the 2024/2025 season. Two of the orchestra’s former chief conductors, Herbert Blomstedt and Esa-Pekka Salonen, have since been named Conductors Laureate, and continue to perform regularly with the orchestra.
The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra performs at Berwaldhallen, concert hall of the Swedish Radio, and is a cornerstone of Swedish public service broadcasting. Its concerts are heard weekly on the Swedish classical radio P2 and regularly on national public television SVT. Several concerts are also streamed on-demand on Berwaldhallen Play and broadcast globally through the EBU.
Daniel Harding is Music and Artistic Director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, with whom in 2022 he celebrated his 15-year anniversary. In the 2014/2015 season, he devised and curated the celebrated Interplay Festival, featuring concerts and related inspirational talks with renowned artists and academics. As Artistic Director, he continues this type of influential programming. Harding is also Conductor Laureate of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with whom he has worked for over 20 years, and Music Director of Youth Music Culture, The Greater Bay Area in China. The 2024/2025 season will be his first as Music Director at the Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
Harding is a regular visitor to the world’s foremost orchestras, including the Wiener Philharmoniker, Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Staatskapelle Dresden and the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala. In the US, he has appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony. A renowned opera conductor, he has led acclaimed productions at the Teatro alla Scala Milan, Wiener Staatsoper, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, and at the Aix-en-Provence and Salzburg Festivals. He was Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris, the Anima Mundi festival of Pisa, and Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.
Daniel Harding tours regularly with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, performing at prestigious venues all over Europe and the world, and has recorded several acclaimed and award-winning albums with the orchestra. His tenure as Music and Artistic Director will last throughout the 2024/2025 season. “It is increasingly rare that the relationship between a conductor and an orchestra not only lasts for more than a decade, but keeps growing,” he says about working with the orchestra.
In 2002, Harding was awarded the title Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government, and in 2017 nominated to the position Officier des Arts et des Lettres. In 2012, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. In 2021, he was appointed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Daniel Harding grew up in Oxford, England, and played trumpet before taking up conducting in his late teens. He is also, since 2016, a qualified airline pilot.
Programme
I. Andante; Allegretto
II. Allegro; Adagio
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