Beethoven & Nielsen by Tarkiainen, Beethoven, Nielsen, Dum 17 Dec. 2023, De la (2023/2023), Dirijor John Storgårds, Musikverein, Vienna, Austria

Ludwig van Beethoven’s only violin concerto is the great classical touchstone for every violinist. Augustin Hadelich, born in 1984, has an excellent podium partner by his side and one with an innate understanding of the task at hand – John Storgårds, himself a violinist as well as a conductor. Storgårds brings a work by the composer Outi Tarkiainen with him from his Finnish homeland. Music about the midnight sun, the colours of the sky and the birth of her son. This is fittingly complemented with the enigmatic Fifth Symphony by Danish composer Carl Nielsen, in which conflicting forces of inertia and change are compellingly depicted in sound.