With Jakub Hrůša and Martin Fröst in Berlin

Berlin, Konzerthaus
20:00 Uhr

These concerts will start with a real orchestral hit about »Jupiter«, the Greek father of the gods. Mozart’s last symphony is a radiant work that portrays the entire gamut of emotions in music, from intense introspection and the passionate anguish of grief to the noble, solemn tones of the tremendous final fugue. We will also be staging a symphonic puppet show: Stravinsky’s »Petrushka«! Every Russian child knows the puppet Petrushka, who is brought to life by a magician’s flute: a life in which he loves, suffers and dies as if he were not an inanimate doll, but a flesh-and-blood human being. In between these two »symphonic tales«, Martin Fröst will interpret the outstanding clarinet concerto by Aaron Copland, whose works are always marked by a combination of both instinct and keen intellect, by a sense for musical effect and joy in experiment. Much like Stravinsky, the Brooklyn-born composer was a »young rebel« who went to live in Paris during the 1920s, a sojourn that was source of many important ideas and much inspiration. After returning to America, Copland also worked in film. He wrote his captivating clarinet concerto with its extensive cadenzas for jazz legend Benny Goodman. In it, we hear what Copland was always striving to create: a music »that is instantly recognisable as American in nature«. And thus he created a congenial combination of jazz and the symphonic – including a melody in the expressive first movement originally written for the documentary film »The Cummington Story«, a tale about Eastern European refugees who find a temporary home in a small American town.

Jakub Hrůša Conductor
Martin Fröst Clarinet

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Symphonie Nr. 41 C-Dur KV 551 »Jupiter«
Aaron Copland Konzert für Klarinette und Orchester
Igor Strawinski »Petruschka« (Fassung 1947)