Boston Symphony Orchestra
Performers
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons, Music Director and Conductor
Anne-Sophie Mutter, Violin
Golda Schultz, Soprano
Program
SIBELIUS Luonnotar
MOZART Violin Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Major, K. 207
THOMAS ADÈS Air for Violin and Orchestra (NY Premiere, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall)
SIBELIUS Symphony No. 5
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission.
At a Glance
Co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Anne-Sophie Mutter, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra along with the Roche Foundation, Thomas Adès’s violin concerto Air (Homage to Sibelius) was composed for Mutter, who premiered the piece under the composer’s direction in Lucerne, Switzerland, in August 2022. Adès composed the piece in 2021–2022 just after completing his ballet triptych Dante, with which it has some ideas in common. The title allows for a double reading, relating to air as the medium of sound and to “aria” (e.g., Bach’s Air on the G String). The beautifully ethereal music of the opening creates the mood that is sustained nearly throughout the single-movement piece.
Anne-Sophie Mutter also performs Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 1. Although known as a pianist, Mozart was also an excellent violinist. He wrote the Concerto No. 1 in 1773 and the remainder of his five violin concertos two years later. Through these pieces, Mozart—then in his late teens—became a master of the concerto form and a fully mature composer. The charm and energy of the First Concerto’s outer movements and the tenderness of its Adagio are pure Mozart.
Adès conceived his Air as an homage to the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, whose music opens and closes this program. The text of his tone poem Luonnotar, based on the Finnish epic Kalevala, describes the title goddess’s descent from the air into the sea. A teal alights on Luonnotar’s knee to make a nest; its eggs break into the sea, creating the heavens. Sibelius’s nine-minute piece begins in suspended time, with a faster middle section describing the teal’s search for a nesting place, and a slow concluding passage depicting the formation of the universe. Sibelius composed his celebrated protean, triumphant Symphony No. 5 soon after finishing Luonnotar. He conceived his Fifth Symphony originally in four movements, led the premiere of that first version in 1915, conducted a revised version a year later, and, after recasting it as a three-movement piece, conducted the final version in November 1919.