Große C-Dur-Symphonie

According to a much-quoted letter from 1824, Franz Schubert wanted to pave his own «path to the great symphony» with «several instrumental pieces». But it was not until 1839, eleven years after his death and the discovery of the work in his estate, that the «Great C Major Symphony» D 944 was premiered and the music world was able to experience for itself the lonely heights of his accomplishment of this plan. The path paved by Andreas Ottensamer, scion of a Viennese musician family, who gave up his position as principal clarinettist with the Berliner Philharmoniker in favour of the baton, has brought him to the conductor’s podium. Ottensamer has long been a welcome guest of the Tonkunstler and this time also pays homage to the Hungarian roots of his mother’s side of the family. He brings us Zoltán Kodály's rousing «Dances of Galánta» and Béla Bartók’s early First Violin Concerto, created for the woman he was in love with at the time, Hungarian violinist Stefi Geyer.