Beethoven 1

At the end of their ten years together, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house in 2025, so this performance will be a special reunion: Yutaka Sado, the first Honorary Conductor in the orchestra’s history, returns to his loyal Tonkunstler friends – those on stage as well as those in the audience. The music is by Ludwig van Beethoven, but not only by him: Beethoven’s First Symphony, composed relatively late in his life, modelled on his teacher Joseph Haydn and yet at times cheekily surpassing him, was the first signpost he hammered into the ground of musical history. His future path would include an avowal of political allegiance to the fight against all forms of oppression with the music to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s tragedy «Egmont». Similarly liberatory, the dazzling music of Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg is free from the dogmas of the avant-garde: His intimate yet beguiling Viola Concerto*, dedicated to soloist Lawrence Power, blurs the boundaries between past and present.

* Austrian premiere on 13 February 2027 in Grafenegg