In higher spheres with Ligeti and Langgaard

Elina Vähälä plays Sibelius

Elina Vähälä knows the work inside out: the Violin Concerto by her compatriot Jean Sibelius. The Finn wrote only one solo concerto: for his own violin. For a century, it has held its own among the top pieces in the repertoire. Sibelius combines great virtuosity with his own elusive lyricism.

Karajan Prize winner Oscar Jockel

The enigmatic nature of Sibelius' music finds an echo in Music of the Spheres, a 1918 orchestral work by Danish composer Rued Langgaard. In it he introduces several progressive innovations, which would later in the twentieth century become standard practice of the avant-garde. For example, he allows the pianist in the orchestra to play the strings of his instrument directly and writes slow-moving clusters for the strings. The latter inspired the Hungarian György Ligeti, whom Langgaard called the pioneer of spectral music. From him, the Groot Omroepkoor sings the 16-voice Lux aeterna, an atheist's hypnotic rendition of the eternal light from the Catholic requiem. Young German composer and conductor Oscar Jockel, winner of the Herbert von Karajan Prize 2023, introduces this finely crafted program with a new work of his own for large orchestra.