FROM GOTHAM TO THE EXHIBITION – ELFMAN & MUSSORGSKY

Vivid sound worlds are one of the major lines running through this season. They can already be found in nineteenth-century programme music – and continue to resonate in today’s film music. This concert is a prime example: an imaginary cinema without film.

Danny Elfman became known as the composer of numerous film scores, including “Batman”, “Spider-Man” and many collaborations with Tim Burton. His Cello Concerto also unfolds a powerful visual force: romantically shimmering sound spaces, expressive lines and a rhythmically driven finale in which percussion and winds propel the music forward. Gautier Capuçon, one of the great cellists of our time, takes centre stage.

Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” is a classic of musical storytelling. Inspired by drawings by his friend Viktor Hartmann, the work leads through a sounding gallery: from the gnome to the old castle, playing children, the ox cart and the catacombs, all the way to Baba Yaga’s hut and the Great Gate of Kyiv.

On the podium is Aurel Dawidiuk, a conductor of the younger generation who is already attracting considerable international attention. With Elfman and Mussorgsky, he opens a concert evening full of fantasy, colour and orchestral suggestive power.