PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA

Jean Sibelius — The Oceanides Op. 73
Esa-Pekka Salonen — Cello Concerto – French premiere
Igor Stravinsky — The Firebird

Idolised as a conductor, acclaimed as a composer, Esa-Pekka Salonen summons the elements and reveals himself to be a demiurge with this fantasy concert in which the Ondines from Scandinavian folklore stand alongside the popular Russian moralised fables about actual or mythical animals. At the head of the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Finnish artist brings out before our very eyes, a dream-like world and invites us to contemplate the beauty of the northern seas as painted by Sibelius in The Oceanides to meditate on the course of the clouds suggested by his Cello Concerto, and to admire the flight of The Firebird by Stravinsky, composer of whom today he is one of the most brilliant interpreters.