Susanna Mälkki returns to Stockholm for two performances with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. She brings her fresh interpretation of works old and new in performance with the ferociously talented pianist, Conrad Tao. These concerts feature groundbreaking pieces from Helsinki-born Lotta Wennäkoski, American composer Andrew Norman, as well as the revolutionary modernist Igor Stravinksy.
Ms. Mälkki will lead performances on October 4 & 5 at the Berwaldhallen. The evening’s program begins with Wennäkoski’s Flounce, a brisk and lightweight piece that is very much guided by its title. Following is Norman’s Suspend, a fantasy for piano and orchestra that salutes to Brahms, and concluding is Stravinsky’s innovative and enchanting The Rite of Spring.
Tickets and additional information are available at the following link.
Susanna Mälkki on The Rite of Spring:
“…some of the most extraordinary moments in The Rite are those build-ups when he’s adding layer by layer. There are these incredible forces, sonic forces somehow, which are built on top of each other. And then there is this constant movement, and volcanic eruptions or tsunamis. In a way, in order to recreate the feeling of shock today, it demands a great ability to build up the feeling of expectation because we already know what comes next. Also, people are much more used to ’loud’ music now, for better or worse. We don’t want the microwave heated version of it, we want the real thing! So in that way it’s more challenging to do it really, really well today. But The Rite Of Spring also has this primitive side – we need to smell the earth in it, and I think this sort of large scale thinking is really necessary whilst respecting all the incredible details. It’s so rich and it’s so compact – there’s not one bar too little or too much, it’s really extraordinary.” (Notes from the podium)