Interview
Andris Nelsons and Baiba Skride in conversation with Matthew Hunter Andris Nelsons and Baiba Skride
Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony is performed much less frequently than the heroic Third and the fateful Fifth. Undeservedly so, since its originality, humour and esprit are captivating. Andris Nelsons conducts the Fourth along with Strauss’s Don Juan, a tone poem full of energy and exquisite instrumental colour. In addition, Baiba Skride plays Sofia Gubaidulina’s Violin Concerto Dialog: Ich und Du – an intense dialogue between solo and orchestra.
“It always excites me,” says Andris Nelsons, “how Sofia Gubaidulina combines intellect, spirituality and sensuousness in her works. Her music gets directly under your skin.” Together with his long-time artistic associate Baiba Skride, he performs Gubaidulina’s Third Violin Concerto Dialog: Ich und Du. The title refers to a book by the religious philosopher Martin Buber, in which he developed the dialogical principle: “the person in you becomes me”. The violin concerto focuses above all on the individual in his relationship to God – in a fascinating dialogue between soloist and orchestra, which is repeatedly interrupted in a cadenza-like manner in order to develop into dramatic outbursts.
Ludwig van Beethoven’s playful Fourth Symphony, which departs from the heroic spirit of the music of the French Revolution, takes us into completely different soundscapes. “Cheerful, comprehensible and very engaging”, as described by Beethoven, it could have been written as a musical escape from the spiritual misery of its time.
Richard Strauss’s effervescent hit Don Juan, on the other hand, offers spectacular music in breathtakingly sophisticated instrumentation, with which the composer catapulted himself into the forefront of the avant-garde at the time.
Berliner Philharmoniker
Andris Nelsons
Baiba Skride
© 2023 Berlin Phil Media GmbH
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