Estimated duration

2 h, incl. intermission

Organizer

Helsingin tapahtumasäätiö sr

The Cleveland Orchestra, one of the world’s most renowned symphony orchestras, will perform a second concert at Helsinki Festival. In addition to the previously announced concert, the orchestra will perform at Helsinki Music Centre on 29 August, featuring Sergei Prokofiev’s Second Symphony and Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique.

The Cleveland Orchestra, one of the world’s most prestigious symphony orchestras, one of the “Big Five” of the most renowned orchestras in the United States, returns to Finland after decades of waiting. The orchestra, which has rarely visited the Nordic countries, last performed in Finland in 1965.

Founded in 1918, the orchestra has been led for the last 22 years by top Austrian conductor Franz Welser-Möst, who also led the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in a memorable performance at the 2015 Helsinki Festival.

The Cleveland Orchestra is still regarded as one of the world’s best active orchestras, and in 2020 the New York Times named it the best in America. Under Welser-Möst, the orchestra has been honed to its technical and artistic peak.

First performed in Paris in 1925, Prokofiev’s Second Symphony is renowned for its rhythmic power and the influence of the European avant-garde of its time – Prokofiev himself described the work as a vision of “iron and steel”.

Berlioz’s Fantastic Symphony has established itself as one of the most important orchestral works of the 19th century. Berlioz pioneered new orchestral practices and techniques to achieve dreamlike and opium-infused visions unheard of in Western music at the time.

The Cleveland Orchestra
Franz Welser-Möst, conductor

Programme:
Sergei Prokofiev: Symphony No. 2 in D minor, Op. 40
Hector Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14