Isabelle van Keulen and Hartmut Haenchen: Brahms & Strauss

Two Dutch luminaries on stage with the North Netherlands Orchestra. Hartmut Haenchen conducts two symphonic poems by Strauss, Isabelle van Keulen plays Brahms' beloved Violin Conc erto.

Isabelle van Keulen with Brahms' Violin Concerto
Isabelle van Keulen, for many years one of Holland's most renowned violinists and known to the general public as a member of the Maestro jury, plays Brahms' Violin Concerto. Polish virtuoso Wieniawski found it unplayable and conductor Hans von Bülow believed it was written against, rather than for, the violin. Fortunately, the Violin Concerto has been a true audience favorite since its premiere. This love is also fostered by Isabelle van Keulen for this work. Only 21 years old, she played it under conductor Collin Davis. "You shouldn't always study what you can already do," he confided to her even then during rehearsal. How brilliantly she can do it is proven by the countless performances she has given of this composition.

Haenchen conducts Richard Strauss
Furore made Hartmut Haenchen in the Netherlands as musical director of De Nationale Opera in Amsterdam. Naturalized a Dutchman in 2006, he has remained loyal to our country to this day and has conducted virtually every orchestra in the Netherlands. Since 2022, he has been first guest conductor of the Noord Nederlands Orkest. He conducts this orchestra in two works by Richard Strauss, the absolute master storyteller with music. In Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, he portrays the adventurous mischief-making of the hero, who pays for it with his life. Equally moving is his Tod und Verklärung, in which a dying old man must face his inevitable end.