Playing with tradition: Larcher and Sibelius

While others turned the music around during the First World War on its head, Jean Sibelius remained true to tradition. Kirill Gerstein plays a new piano concerto by Thomas Larcher, who in his own way also builds on this.

Kirill Gerstein plays Larcher

The Austrian Thomas Larcher, still composer in residence at the Concertgebouw in season 2019-2020, is writing his Second Piano Concerto for the Matinee and pianist Kirill Gerstein. As in his earlier works presented in our series, he will play with European music history.

Sibelius' Fifth Symphony and Samuel Adams

Jean Sibelius' monumental Fifth Symphony, one of Karina Canellakis' favourite works, is also such a mixture of diverse influences. Besides Finnish culture and folk music, the German-Russian tradition was for Sibelius a source of both inspiration and opposition. Although Samuel Adams chose his own path, he is definitely a son of Erasmus Prize winner John Adams. Besides many European influences, traces of American minimal music are certainly present.