AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS – ROYAL CONCERTGEBOUW ORCHESTRA – ADAMS, SAINT-SAËNS, MUSSORGSKY

Sheku Kanneh-Mason
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Semyon Bychkov, conductor

PROGRAMME
John Adams: Frenzy (Dutch premiere)
Camille Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto No. 1
Modest Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition (orchestration Ravel)

VENUE NOTE
Since Sheku Kanneh-Mason won the 2016 BBC Young Musician Award, the young cellist has conquered concert stages and hearts around the world. He is making his Concertgebouw Orchestra debut in a performance of Saint-Saëns’s gripping Cello Concerto No. 1. Conductor Semyon Bychkov has juxtaposed this romantic work with the Dutch premiere of the thrilling Frenzy – John Adams at his best! – and a true classic: Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

Mussorgsky composed Pictures at an Exhibition in memory of a good friend, the painter Viktor Hartmann. The collection of ten paintings, drawings and sketches offers impressions of everyday life and bizarre fantasies from the world of fairy tales and legends. Powerful images of old Russia abound, and Maurice Ravel’s magical orchestration truly brings to life Mussorgsky’s paintings in music.