The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra celebrates its fiftieth Christmas Matinee on television this year! Klaus Mäkelä leads the Concertgebouw Orchestra in an atmospheric Christmas concert featuring Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade and Diepenbrock’s moving Lydische nacht.

Every year on Christmas Day since 1975, the Concertgebouw Orchestra’s Christmas concert has been televised from the Main Hall – formerly by NOS and Eurovision, and since 1990 by AVRO, now AVROTROS. Traditionally, the Christmas Matinee is the chief conductor’s domain. Bernard Haitink’s Mahler symphonies and Riccardo Chailly’s opera concerts have reached a near-legendary status.

Nowadays, the orchestra’s chief conductor designate Klaus Mäkelä wields the baton on Christmas Day. This time he will conduct an enjoyable concert full of twilight tints, nocturnal whispers and tales from distant lands. Experience the fabulous stories from the One Thousand and One Nights in Rimsky-Korsakov’s sultry Sheherazade , the solo violin running through the work like a golden thread.

Less well-known but just as compelling is the symphonic poem Lydische nacht by Alphons Diepenbrock, who is considered the most important Dutch composer of the late-Romantic period. Who wouldn’t feel for a shepherd all alone in the darkness with his turbulent inner world and the cool, impassive moon…

Program:

Alphons Diepenbrock – Lydische Nacht (Lydian Night, symphonic poem, arr. E. Reeser)

Nikolaj Rimsky-Korsakov – Sheherazade