Many composers find inspiration in fairy tales and heroic stories. These imaginative places can allow their creativity to flourish. The Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the Groot Omroepkoor are collaborating to bring these fairytale worlds to life through music. The upcoming performance of Rachmaninov’s choral symphony, “The Clocks,” promises to be a spectacular event. Additionally, Sibelius and Calliope Tsoupaki will be joining us on this enchanting musical journey.

Sergei Rachmaninov considered it his most beautiful composition. He based The Bells on Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem The Bells. A dark fairy tale that Rachmaninov set for orchestra and choir. If you listen carefully, you will hear his love for the chirping bells of Russia: from twinkling bells to death knells. Jean Sibelius is one of the great masters of magical music. In the Finnish and Icelandic sagas Sibelius found ample nourishment for his magnificent fantasy landscapes. In En saga en Luonnotar, Sibelius sketches a mythical world of sound that simultaneously seduces listeners into a personal dream journey. You can also dream away to the music of Calliope Tsoupaki, former Composer Laureate. According to the composer, “Like much of my music, Aurora has many narrative layers. The piece is a beautiful journey, yet it also has something dark about it. I wasn’t just searching for a ‘cruise feeling,’ but also for something that fits our current time, a time in which everything revolves around money, a time of climate change and refugees.”

Calliope:

There is no story in AURORA. Only names, the names of boats rescuing refugees in the Mediterranean and the names of stars and constellations as an allegory for darkness and the night sky. 

“Maybe we would have made it to heaven” is a sentence of a surviver of the deadly journey, that I read in an article on rescuing refugees in the Mediterranean sea.

When I was asked to reflect on the thematic association of “Wanderlust” to this composition, opening the AVROTROS Friday concert season 2023-2024, I could only think of the other face of a journey, I could only think of the night in the sea, of dreaming a new life, of dying for it.

The boats have beautiful names, but there is much suffering behind them.”

“Wanderlust”:  the urge to leave, to roam, the desire to move, letting go of here and now, travelling, seeking a fantasy, an unknown world, taking off to a new other life …

Programma:

Tsoupaki – Aurora (world premiere, commissioned by AVROTROS Vrijdagconcert)
Sibelius – En saga
Sibelius – Luonnotar
Rachmaninov – The bells