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Holst’s the Planets

From Mars to Neptune is one of the world’s most beloved and performed symphonic works from British composer Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite, The Planets. The suggestive and dramatic music has inspired, and continues to inspire, more than 100 years after it was written. British pianist Paul Lewis is no stranger to Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27, his final as well as one of his most exploratory works. In addition, there will be an interesting première of much lauded orchestral composer Katarina Leyman.

The British pianist Paul Lewis is considered one of the leading interpreters of the classical piano repertoire, and here, he performs Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27 in B major, which Mozart completed in his final year of life. The concerto is initially more restrained and melancholic than many of his earlier works, containing bold harmonics and, in places, romantic features. The final movement is more exuberant than the previous ones, with a theme that Mozart later used in Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling, a song that Zacharias Topelius put Swedish lyrics to and in our songbooks is known as Kom hör min vackra visa (Come, hear my beautiful song).

Visual art goes hand in hand with music for Swedish composer Katarina Leyman. She studied composition in Stockholm and Boston and also studied painting and sculpture. Leyman was raised in a family of artists and says that music enables her to express her inner images. She often finds inspiration in colours, movements, structures or natural phenomena. This is not her first commissioned work for The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Solar Flares, inspired by the sun’s impressive spectacle in the sky, was performed in 2010, and now, finally, it is time once again.

According to the composer Gustav Holst, astrology was his favourite guilty pleasure in life. This, together with other interests such as orchestration, English folk tone and Roman mythology, resulted in his magnificent orchestral suite The Planets. Holst was a master of melody and here, he demonstrates how the orchestra’s resources are used to their maximum potential. He had been working on the suite for several years and it was first performed in 1918 for a private, invited audience. Thereafter, individual movements were played in different settings, rumours about the work spread and when the entire suite was officially performed in London in 1920, it was a huge success.

The fame that Holst acquired with The Planets was not something he was personally very happy about. He thought that it was a pity that The Planets received all the attention and that his other, according to him, better works were eclipsed. In the 1920s the work was spectacular, but for us the style is familiar. Extracts from the suite have been used in many films and when John Williams wrote the music to Star Wars, Holst was one of his greatest sources of inspiration. The well-known English song I Vow to Thee, My Country also has its origins here, in the Jupiter movement. It is often used in commemoration of soldiers who died in battle.

Text: Nina Sandell


SWEDISH RADIO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA dot SWEDISH RADIO CHOIR dot 2018/2019
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The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra is a multiple-award-winning ensemble renowned for its high artistic standard and stylistic breadth, as well as collaborations with the world’s finest composers, conductors, and soloists. It regularly tours all over Europe and the world and has an extensive and acclaimed recording catalogue.

Daniel Harding has been Music Director of the SRSO since 2007, and since 2019 also its Artistic Director. His tenure will last throughout the 2024/2025 season. Two of the orchestra’s former chief conductors, Herbert Blomstedt and Esa-Pekka Salonen, have since been named Conductors Laureate, and continue to perform regularly with the orchestra.

The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra performs at Berwaldhallen, concert hall of the Swedish Radio, and is a cornerstone of Swedish public service broadcasting. Its concerts are heard weekly on the Swedish classical radio P2 and regularly on national public television SVT. Several concerts are also streamed on-demand on Berwaldhallen Play and broadcast globally through the EBU.

Engelske dirigenten och violinisten Andrew Manze hyllas som en av sin generations mest inspirerande dirigenter med en kombination av både bred och djup repertoarkännedom, sällsynt kommunikationsförmåga och en osviklig utstrålning. Han var chefsdirigent för NDR Radiophilharmonie, Nordtyska radions symfoniorkester 2014–2023 och sedan 2018 är han förste gästdirigent för Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Han är återkommande gäst vid Mostly Mozart Festival i New York City och har den senaste tiden arbetat med orkestrar som Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Mozarteumorkestern i Salzburg, Concertgebouworkestern och Finska radions symfoniorkester, och lett Chamber Orchestra of Europe på turné i Tyskland.

Med NDR Radiophilharmonie har Andrew Manze gjort prisbelönta inspelningar av verk av Felix Mendelssohn och Mozart. Han har även spelat in Ralph Vaughan Williams samtliga symfonier med Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. I november 2016 beskrevs han av The Telegraph som ”den bäste av alla nu levande Vaughan Williams-uttolkare”. Han är också verksam som lärare, musikskribent och redaktör, Fellow vid Royal Academy of Music och gästprofessor vid Norges musikhögskola i Oslo.

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Chief conductor of the Jeune Choeur de Paris, he started a collaboration with the SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart in 2013 (including a recording of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé), and also works regularly with the Chœur de Radio-France and the Choeur Accentus since 2014, for tours, radio performances, recordings, preparations and A Cappella concerts. He collaborates with many personalities, such as Sir Simon Rattle, Gustavo Dudamel, Daniele Gatti, Louis Langrée, Stéphane Denève, Daniel Harding, Laurence Equilbey, L. G. Alarcon… He has also conducted the WDR Rundfunkchor in 2016. In July 2016, he has prepared both the SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart and the NDR Chor for Berlioz’s Romeo et Juliette. In 2017, he has participate to the opening of the Seine Musical conducting the choir accentus and in 2018, he starts a collaboration with the Croatian Radio Choir. Korovitch works for many festivals: the Mozartwoche in Salzburg, Recontres Musicales d’Evian, the Festival de Radio-France in Montpellier or the festival Mozart in New York.

The British pianist Paul Lewis is internationally regarded as one of the leading musicians of his generation. His cycles of core piano works by Beethoven and Schubert have received unanimous critical and public acclaim worldwide. He performs regularly as soloist with the world’s great orchestras, such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, London Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony, NHK Symphony, New York Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic, and the Royal Concertgebouw, Tonhalle Zurich, Leipzig Gewandhaus, and Mahler Chamber Orchestra. He is also a frequent guest at the most prestigious international festivals, including Lucerne, Mostly Mozart (New York), Tanglewood, Schubertiade, Salzburg, Edinburgh, and London’s BBC Proms.

His numerous awards have included the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist of the Year, two Edison awards, three Gramophone awards, the Diapason D’or de l’Année, the Premio Internazionale Accademia Musicale Chigiana, and the South Bank Show Classical Music award. In 2016 he was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, and holds honorary doctorates from Southampton University and Edge Hill University.

His multi-award winning discography for Harmonia Mundi includes the complete Beethoven piano sonatas, concertos, and the Diabelli Variations, Liszt’s B minor sonata and other late works, all of Schubert’s major piano works from the last six years of his life including the 3 song cycles with tenor Mark Padmore, solo works by Schumann and Mussorgsky, and the Brahms D minor piano concerto with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Daniel Harding.

Paul Lewis studied with Joan Havili at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London before going on to study privately with Alfred Brendel. He is co-Artistic Director of Midsummer Music, an annual chamber music festival in Buckinghamshire, UK, founded by him and his wife, the Norwegian cellist Bjørg Lewis.