Yeol Eum Son speelt Ravel, Emilia Hoving dirigeert Sibelius 6

Yeol Eum Son plays Ravel

Frenchman Maurice Ravel incorporated the impressions he gathered during a tour of America in 1928 into his Piano Concerto in G. After an energetic burst of energy, Ravel combines the Spanish music of his youth (his mother was Basque) with American jazz. It is music that not only stimulates the ears but sets the entire body in motion. The second movement is of a completely different order: dreamy and serene. The long, sometimes painfully beautiful melody of the piano (later in the orchestra, with highlights in the flute and English horn) seems to emerge on the spot above the waltz accompaniment of the left hand. The final movement is even more energetic than the opening and takes virtuosity up a notch. The jazz influences are abundant, the rhythm is driving, and the harmonies are sparkling. In the hands of the Korean star pianist Yeol Eum Son, it becomes worldly.

Sibelius 6

The music of Jean Sibelius is like Finnish nature: impressive, capricious, beautiful, but sometimes also desolate, icy, and dark. There is a strong coherence between all these elements that lies over the notes like a primal force. Sibelius' Sixth Symphony is less dark than his other symphonies: this music refreshes like cool spring water, he believed himself. With its introspective, pastoral, and modal character, this symphony is light and airy, and at the same time just as impressive as a journey through the splendor of Finnish nature.