PROGRAMME
IGOR STRAVINSKY: Le Faune et la Bergère op. 2
IGOR STRAVINSKY: Scherzo fantastique op. 3
IGOR STRAVINSKY: Feu d'artifice op. 4
IGOR STRAVINSKY: Chant funèbre op. 5 (Swiss premiere)
IGOR STRAVINSKY: Le sacre du printemps
- Conductor Riccardo Chailly
Mezzo-soprano Sophie Koch
ABOUT THIS CONCERT
Broadcast Dates:
24 August 2017 at 20:00 on SRF2 Kultur
In August, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra returns – as it does every year – to its summer residency in Lucerne. This tradition goes back to 2003, when Claudio Abbado (1933-2014) invited the MCO to form the core of his newly-founded Lucerne Festival Orchestra. This year, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra can be heard in a total of five concerts: in addition to four performances as part of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, it will also be featured in one MCO concert. In one way or the other, all performances closely relate to the 2017 festival theme, “identity”.
This year, all four Lucerne Festival Orchestra concerts are conducted by Music Director Riccardo Chailly. In this Lucerne Festival Orchestra concert, an all-Stravinsky programme celebrates the work of a composer who revolutionized the world of classical music at the turn of the 20th century. While Le sacre du printemps (premiered in 1913) is undoubtedly the work that is most closely associated with Stravinsky, this concert offers listeners the opportunity to retrace the composer’s musical trajectory. In addition to Le sacre du printemps, this concert showcases a few of the composer’s earlier works: Le Faune et la Bergère (1906), composed for mezzo-soprano and orchestra; Scherzo fantastique (1908); Feu d’artifice (1908); and – of important historical significance – the Swiss premiere of his Chant funèbre, premiered in 1909 and only re-discovered in 2015.
The Lucerne Festival, set on idyllic Lake Lucerne in central Switzerland, is one of the world’s most renowned classical music festivals and a meeting place for leading performers from all over the globe. Even as it has begun to extend outward from the lake to fill the city, the Kongress and Kulturzentrum Luzern (KKL), Jean Nouvel’s concert hall famous for its exquisite acoustics and architecture, remains the heart of festival.