In higher spheres with Ligeti and Langgaard

Elina Vähälä plays Sibelius

Elina Vähälä knows the work intimately: the Violin Concerto by her compatriot Jean Sibelius. The Finn wrote only one solo concerto: for his own violin. For a century, it has held its place among the masterpieces of the repertoire. Sibelius combines great virtuosity with his own elusive lyricism.

Karajan Prize winner Oscar Jockel

The enigmatic character of Sibelius's music is echoed in Music of the Spheres , a 1918 orchestral work by the Danish composer Rued Langgaard. In it, he introduces several progressive innovations that would become standard practice among the avant-garde later in the twentieth century. For example, he has the pianist in the orchestra play the strings of his instrument directly and writes slowly moving clusters for the strings. The latter inspired the Hungarian György Ligeti, who called Langgaard a pioneer of spectral music. The Netherlands Radio Choir will sing his sixteen-part Lux aeterna , the hypnotic sonification by an atheist of the eternal light from the Catholic requiem. The young German composer and conductor Oscar Jockel, winner of the 2023 Herbert von Karajan Prize, introduces this finely conceived program with a new work of his own for large orchestra.