Season Concert 8: Beethoven & Juho Pohjonen

5:30 pm, Valohalli
PRE-CONCERT EVENT
Kuopion City Orchestra
Jessica Cottis, conductor
Juho Pohjonen, piano

Ludwig van Beethoven: Fidelio Overture, Op. 72
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 5 in D major

“It is always a great pleasure to make music with Kuopion City Orchestra. I look forward to returning to conduct two works that, despite being separated by a century, share a sense of optimism and renewal. Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 is full of vitality, youthful enthusiasm and wit. Yet in its more reflective passages, we hear Beethoven’s already bold harmonic imagination, as well as moments of great mystery and depth. This tone of inward reflection continues in Vaughan Williams’s Fifth Symphony, a masterpiece of great peace and hope. Written during the difficult years of the Second World War, it is among the composer’s most exalted and beautiful works. This is music that uplifts and brings light to our hearts!”
—Jessica Cottis

The overture to Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, encapsulates the opera’s central themes—freedom, courage and hope—and builds a musical arc that grows from a gentle opening towards heroic splendour.

“Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto is one of the composer’s most cheerful works. Its energetic opening movement is astonishingly inventive, giving the soloist constant opportunities to play with new musical ideas. The Largo that follows offers a timeless and deeply lyrical pause, before the work culminates in an irresistibly rhythmic, playful and fast-paced finale.”
—Juho Pohjonen

Vaughan Williams’s Fifth Symphony is one of the brightest and most consoling orchestral works of the 20th century. Born in the shadow of war, the symphony nevertheless radiates peace, gentle strength and profound spirituality. The composer was working at the same time on his large-scale stage work The Pilgrim’s Progress, and many of the symphony’s themes and moods stem from this long-term project. The work conveys spiritual reflection, a sense of journeying and searching, and a deep, consoling humanism. Vaughan Williams’s Fifth has accordingly been seen as a counterforce to the chaos of war. The work is like a quiet prayer—purifying and profoundly humane—and has established its place as one of the composer’s best-loved symphonies.

Duration approximately 1 hour 45 minutes, including an interval. The concert is included in the Season Ticket and Mini Series 2.
Organised by Kuopion kaupunginorkesteri.
Tickets: €34.60 / €28.10 for pensioners and groups of at least 20 people / €10.60 for children under 16 and students.