Vara Konserthus, Stora Salen Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra plays in Vara Konserthus

Magnus Lindberg belongs to the "golden generation" of Finnish music that took the world by storm in the 1980s. Together with Esa-Pekka Salonen, he founded the Ears Open Society, an initiative whose open-door policy created a fresh musical wind. He achieved his breakthrough with the orchestral work Kraft in 1985 and has composed a series of significant works for solo instruments, as well as a vocal work for Barbara Hannigan. From 2009 to 2012, Lindberg served as Composer-in-Residence with the New York Philharmonic. Jubilees was originally composed as a set of piano miniatures intended as a gift for the composer Pierre Boulez. The six movements form a harmonious whole. Lindberg himself describes the piano work: “It bears a distant relationship to the études of Debussy and Chopin, as they too work with clearly defined textures. The first movement contains the most activity. The subsequent movements undergo a process of refinement, allowing the harmony of the final movement to rise to the surface, stripped of everything else; the overall dramatic arc has been clarified." In 2002, Lindberg created this 15-minute version for chamber orchestra.

In Prokofiev's Fifth Piano Concerto we are presented with a strange world, not least in relation to his other piano concertos. This is not to say that his distinctive features are absent, quite the opposite, but they appear here in a strikingly concentrated form. The concerto consists of five, relatively short, movements in which the piano and orchestra are not separated in the traditional way, but they alternate roles; between the soloist and the accompanying. Already in the first movement, short, motivic cells are joined together and driven forward by motor rhythms, sonorous friction and abrupt changes in register. Harmonically, a tonal center is heard, but it is inexorably distorted by chromatic runs and sharp dissonances. The piano itself is often heard almost as a percussion instrument. It is hammered forward and all passages where a lyrical feeling appears, as in the fourth movement's larghetto, seem to repeatedly crackle when some form of romantic, longer line appears. Instead, we hear a harmony where function is of little use, giving way to a feeling of sonorous objects that are presented one by one. The mechanical handling of piano and orchestra and the fragmentary motifs carved out in five movements form a piano concerto that does not seek synthesis or resolution but depicts five separate characters. The romantic narrative is replaced by a thinking that belongs to modernity. Esaias Järnegard

Beethoven's Third Symphony from 1803 shook the foundations of classical music. After the Viennese Classical First and the more experimental Second Symphony, Beethoven found a musical language totally of his own with the Third. It is expansive, large, and does not shy away from new and unexpected effects (the most obvious are probably the dissonances in the opening of the first movement). Never before had any symphony had such an extensive and musically elaborate opening movement, which is at the same time completely romantic in expression. The self-confidence and perfection of the symphony are striking - like a shiny locomotive speeding through a landscape where only oxcarts had previously passed. It turned out in retrospect that the symphony was far ahead of its time. Much of Brahms' symphony music can, for example, be traced back to the Eroica, which says something about its epoch-making influence. The funeral march in movement 2 (which is said to have been composed a few years earlier for a noble Englishman) is unique, a variation movement with a previously unimagined weight and emotional strength. Beethoven single-handedly expanded the dynamics of musical expression, making other symphonies from the same period seem puny by comparison. But it also meant that many listeners found the music bizarre, incomprehensible, and frightening.

The Gothenburg Symphony was formed in 1905 and today consists of 109 musicians. The orchestra's base is Gothenburg Concert Hall at Götaplatsen that has gathered music lovers since 1935. Since the 2019-2020 season, Barbara Hannigan is Principal guest conductor. We are also a proud partner of Barbara Hannigan's Equilibrium mentoring program focusing on young singers at the start of their careers. The title Principal Guest Conductor is shared by Pekka Kuusisto from 2025. Wilhelm Stenhammar was the orchestra's chief conductor from 1907 to 1922. He gave the orchestra a strong Nordic profile and invited colleagues Carl Nielsen and Jean Sibelius to the orchestra. Under the direction of conductor Neeme Järvi from 1982-2004, the orchestra made a series of international tours as well as a hundred disc recordings and established themselves among Europe's leading orchestras. In 1996, the Swedish Riksdag appointed the Gothenburg Symphony as Sweden's National Orchestra. In recent decades, the orchestra has had prominent chief conductors such as Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Mario Venzago and Gustavo Dudamel, following Kent Nagano as Principal Guest conductor. Anna-Karin Larsson is CEO and artistic director, Gustavo Dudamel honorary conductor and Neeme Järvi chief conductor emeritus. The orchestra's owner is the Västra Götaland Region. The Gothenburg Symphony works regularly with conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Joana Carneiro, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Christian Zacharias and Anja Bihlmaier.

Jukka-Pekka Saraste took the position of Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra in 2023. 2010-2019, he was Chief Conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne and 2006-2013, Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. He has previously held positions with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Jukka-Pekka Saraste is one of the founders of the LEAD! Foundation, a mentorship programme for young conductors and soloists based in Finland. Jukka-Pekka Saraste’s guest engagements have taken him to major orchestras around the world. He has developed a strong profile in opera and has enjoyed success with concert performances of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, Schoenberg’s Erwartung and Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle, with a stage production of Mendelssohn’s Elijah directed by Calixto Bieito, and Korngold’s Die tote Stadt at the Finnish National Opera. He has a strong relationship with works by Beethoven, Bruckner, Shostakovich, Stravinsky and Sibelius and is internationally acclaimed for his interpretations of Mahler. Born in Heinola, he began his career as a violinist before training as a conductor at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. Jukka-Pekka Saraste has received the Pro Finlandia Prize, the Sibelius Medal and the Finnish State Music Prize and was awarded the Finnish Lion Order in 2023.

Peter Jablonski has performed, collaborated and recorded with the world's leading orchestras and conductors. He is among the leading pianists of his generation and is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. He was signed to Decca record label when he was 17 years old. In 2026, he performs at the Seoul Arts Centre, at concert halls in Hamamatsu and Yokohama City in Japan, and with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. In recent seasons, he has guested with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra with Nicholas Collon, the Royal Swedish Philharmonic with Jukka-Pekka Saraste, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra with Jonathan Nott, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra with Gemma New, the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra with Lukasz Borowicz, and performed at Wigmore Hall in London. Peter Jablonski records exclusively for Ondine, and his recording of piano works by Ronald Stevenson was awarded a Swedish Grammis in 2025. Recent releases include music by Grazyna Bacewicz, the complete mazurkas by Frederic Chopin, and piano concertos by André Tchaikowsky. He most recently guested with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra in 2023, playing the Bacewicz piano concerto.