Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen & Yuja Wang
From Ravel to Rautavaara
Klarafestival 2026 opens with orchestral magic. Jean Sibelius' Seventh Symphony is a fantasy in one movement, in which the godfather of Finnish music juggles with form, tempo and tonality. His pupil Einojuhani Rautavaara showed similar originality in his Piano Concerto No. 1 from 1969. A few decades earlier, French composer Claude Debussy conjured up the sea in three symphonic sketches. But it is his colleague Maurice Ravel who is responsible for the most impressive magic trick of the evening: he wrote a wildly virtuosic Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. It was commissioned by pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in the First World War. Piano phenomenon Yuja Wang rolls up her (left) sleeve for an encounter with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Introduction
19:30 by Elise Simoens - Bozar Studio
estimated end of the concert at 22:30
programme
Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)
Symphony No. 7 (in one movement), Op. 105
Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016)
Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 45
- Con grandezza
- Andante (ma rubato)
- Molto vivace
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Piano Concerto in D Major, ‘For the Left Hand’
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
La mer
- De l’aube à midi sur la mer
- Jeux de vagues
- Dialogue du vent et de la mer
Yuja Wang © Julia Wesely