John Eliot Gardiner & Piotr Anderszewski by Beethoven, Sibelius, Od (2025/2025), Dirigent John Eliot Gardiner, Tonhalle Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland

It has always been common for composers to be commissioned to write works. It is more unusual for a government to commission a composer to write a work for its own 50th birthday. And that this birthday is then also declared a bank holiday: This has probably only happened in the case of the Finn Jean Sibelius. Now John Eliot Gardiner conducts Sibelius' serenade for himself – Symphony No. 5 – and Piotr Anderszewski plays Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1, which he also wrote for himself, so to speak: At the Viennese premiere in 1800, it was of course Beethoven himself who took the solo part.