Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

During the final weeks of his life, Franz Schubert made initial sketches for a never completed Tenth Symphony. Luciano Berio utilised the surviving sketches as the basis for a ‘ricomposizione’ of this work, incorporating Schubert’s highly expressive melodies into an iridescent orchestral language. Berio did not attempt to fill the intermittent gaps in these symphonic sketches in keeping with the original style, instead inserting his own dreamlike sequences which at times abruptly transplant the orchestral texture into a remote state of suspended animation. Just like the restoration of a fresco whose century-old damage can no longer be completely concealed, a composition has evolved permeated by Schubertian concepts and melodies with quotations and reminiscences from his late works. 

Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra was a resounding success at its world premiere in Boston in 1944 and has remained one of the Hungarian composer’s most popular works ever since. Bartók spent his final years in the USA after fleeing from Hungary towards the beginning of World War II. He composed the five-movement work within the space of a mere few months. The instrumental contest begins with a mysterious melody on the lower strings accompanied by eerie tremolos. After a stuttering side-drum solo and typically Bartokian melodies featuring pairs of woodwinds, the second movement unfolds in the manner of a dance. A sombre Elegia conjures up the nocturnal image of a cemetery by night contrasting with the blend of irony and mockery characterising the following Intermezzo. The scintillating and emotionally-charged exploration of orchestral timbres culminates in a triumphant Presto finale embellished by brass fanfares.