Beethovens femma by Beethoven, Hillborg, Milch-Sheriff, jeu. 30 mars 2023, Du (2023/2023), Chef d'orchestre Omer Meir Wellber, Berwaldhallen, Stockholm, Suède

Hardly any classical work is as well known as Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, with its powerful opening. In her tribute work to Beethoven, The Eternal Stranger, the Israeli composer Ella Milch-Sheriff has started from a suggestive dream that Beethoven himself told about and portrays the legendary composer in a new and unexpected way. We also have the privilege of taking part in violist Lawrence Power's Anders Hillborg's Viola Concerto , a work commissioned by, among others, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Tributes, drama and heroism are words that can be said to sum up this program that mixes works by Ludwig van Beethoven with newly written music by Israeli composer Ella Milch-Schreiff and Swedish Anders Hillborg. The Egmont Overture belongs to a part of Beethoven's music, written for dramas or ballets, and which is performed less often than, for example, his symphonies. The work was written for Goethe's drama Egmont from 1810, which is about a Dutch count who travels to Spain to call for a fight against the Spanish authorities. It is dramatic both musically and in action. Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, known as the Fate Symphony, is also dramatic, completed just a few years before the Egmont Overture was composed. A tribute to Beethoven is the Israeli composer Ella Milch-Schreiff's The eternal stranger/Den evige framlingen, written for the composer's 250th anniversary and also dedicated and commissioned by the evening's conductor Omer Meir Wellber. The work is based on a dream that the composer described in a letter to his friend and publisher Tobias Haslinger in 1821. The theme is alienation, in both a social and physical context, and musically inspired by both Mahler and Schönberg – both well aware of what it is to feel like a stranger. Anders Hillborg's Viola Concerto was written in dialogue with the viola player Lawrence Power, with a desire to highlight the heroic sounds of the instrument, in contrast to the more emotionally plaintive ones that are otherwise often highlighted. In Hillborg's work we get to know several of the different characters of the viola.