Sibelius’ fiolinkonsert med Augustin Hadelich by Sibelius, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Grieg, Od (2023/2023), Dirigent Edward Gardner, Grieghallen, Bergen, Norway

"The saddest intelligence that could hit me - Nordraak is dead! - he, my only friend, my only great hope for Norwegian art! Oh! how dark it has suddenly become about me! And I don't have a person here, who can rightly understand my grief, let me then take my refuge to the tones, they never failed in the time of grief! - Composed a Mourning March over Nordraak -!," wrote Edvard Grieg in his diary on 6 April 1866. The Mourning March, which was performed at Grieg's own funeral in 1907, was originally written for piano, but then arranged for orchestra. Jean Sibelius was himself a skilled violinist and he did not put the instrument on the shelf when he focused on composition. His love for the instrument shines through the entire virtuoso work. The evening's soloist, Augustin Hadelich, will be known to the public after several concerts with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, most recently in September 2022 when he was the soloist in György Ligeti's virtuoso violin concerto. Here you just have to follow the reviewer in Bergens Tidende's call - We can only look forward to Hadelich's return with Sibelius's violin concerto in February! Edward Gardner and the orchestra round off the evening with Sergej Rakhmaninov's last major, lyrical and at the same time rhythmically lively orchestral work, written entirely in the USA, but which reflects the composer's homeland which he left in 1917.