THE BEAUTY OF MELANCHOLY

With his Fourth Piano Concerto, Beethoven opened the door wide to the Romantic era, creating new sound worlds in which the solo instrument and the orchestra stand side by side on equal symphonic footing. Johannes Brahms passed through this door. With his Second Symphony he created a masterpiece that made his contemporaries sit up and take notice: "The Second Symphony shines like the sun warming connoisseurs and laymen alike; it belongs to all who long for good music", wrote the critic Eduard Hanslick. Brahms himself feared that his music was too brooding: "The new symphony is so melancholy that you won't be able to stand it", he wrote to his editor, "I have never written anything so sad, so plump: the score must appear with a mourning edge." Indeed, he succeeds in lifting the sadness through the pastoral mood of the work.

The Wiener Symphoniker will take these two works on tour in Germany from 27 February to 6 March 2023 - from Cologne via Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Hanover and Stuttgart to Munich. With them: Beatrice Rana and Jaap van Zweden. For the Italian pianist, a concert is always also a "journey in music", and now she will tour Germany together with the famous "Wiener Klang". With the principal conductor of the New York Philharmonic, the orchestra has just worked on Brahms Symphonies Three and Four. He began his career as concertmaster of the Concertgebouworkest and is known for his profound and at the same time sensual interpretations.