Jun Märkl, regular guest conductor of the Residentie Orkest, leads the ensemble in a concert of music by Mussorgsky and Stravinsky. He also accompanies Nicolas Altstaedt in Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1.

With more than 50 CDs, including a recording of Stravinsky’s suite The Firebird and a 2022 nomination by Opus Klassik as conductor of the year, Jun Märkl is one of the leading conductors of our time. He leads the Residentie Orkest, where he was appointed permanent guest conductor last season, in a program of Russian evergreens. However, that begins Dutch with Van Delden’s Facets, the title he gave to his Sinfonia III. In it, he repeatedly presents new facets of a 21-note theme, before playing it as a complete brilliant at the end.

For cellist Nicolas Altstaedt, chief guest of the Prinsengracht Concert in 2022, Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 is a fond memory. As a six-year-old, it was the first LP he heard and definitively set him on the path of the cello.

After intermission, the floor is given to Russian legends and folk tales. Mussorgsky composed his Night on the Bald Mountain after Nikolai Gogol’s famous story of a sinister witch’s Sabbath on the night of St. John’s Feast. Stravinsky uses two old Russian fairy tales in The Firebird. From this ballet, which made him instantly world-famous in 1911, he composed several suites, the Last time in 1945 for the American market.

Lex van Delden – Sinfonia III ‘Facets’
Modest Mussorgsky/Rimsky-Korsakov – A Night on the Bald Mountain
Igor Stravinsky Suite – ‘The Firebird’