Vara Konserthus Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra plays in Vara Konserthus

Outi Tarkiainen (b 1985) The Rapids of Life (Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra Co-commission) Only few people ever experience the Ferguson reflex, and they are all women. But those who do are sure to remember it magical strength for ever. I described that enormous surge to my husband as the rapids of life I had to shoot – as a precipice over which I was pushed; and in the process I realised how little I knew about the strength of the human body. This physical command, also known as the foetal ejection reflex and performed without conscious thought, shot our son out of my womb and into our arms in the space of two minutes. The Rapids of Life is a work about that paramount moment, about a female’s instinctive birth-giving and a little child of nature who opens his eyes for the first time. The form of the work imitates the physiological delivery and its different stages, carried along by the ever-shifting waves. While I was composing the piece, the news reached me of the death of Kaija Saariaho, a great composer and a person who was very important to me. The composition began to reflect her as a person; a little flash of her cello concerto even slipped into the cello solo at the beginning, and many of the instruments that meant a lot to her appeared to bear the flame of life along. The piece ends with birth and a great new beginning. This latter is reinforced by the reference in the low brass on the final stages of the score to the first bar of Sibelius’s fourth symphony. The Rapids of Life is dedicated to the memory of Kaija Saariaho. Outi Tarkianen

Claude Debussy (1862-1918) La Mer; trois esquisses symphoniques With the successful premiere of the opera Pelléas et Mélisande in 1902, Claude Debussy established himself seriously as a composer, and after the breakthrough he worked faster and with increased confidence. La Mer (The Sea) was composed between 1903 and 1905, and is among his most audience-friendly orchestral works. Despite the subtitle Three Symphonic Sketches, it is more like a symphony in its structure, but at the same time is a little too unorthodox to be called that, as it deviates from convention in the details. Debussy's stated preference for Asian pentatonic scales, rather than the conventional Western scales, also adds an extra layer of "shimmer" to the sound. In the first movement, From dawn to noon on the sea, Debussy allows the main theme to develop towards a powerful finale, after first being born out of indistinct tonality. With a complicated orchestration at the bottom, where the strings are sometimes divided into up to fifteen parts, together with the horns, the harp and the woodwind, he creates an effective sound world that flows with rich harmonies. The third movement, Dialogue between wind and waves, is a symbolic and powerful musical dialogue between vague and distinct moods. In between we have a scherzo, Play of the Waves, where Debussy shows us a masterful test of free form. The theme material and instrumentation alternates playfully, and is somewhat reminiscent of Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. All three movements have the changeability of the sea as a metaphor for music in constant motion, something Debussy returns to in later compositions.

Richard Strauss (1864–1949) Elektra Symphonische Suite (Arr. Manfred Honeck and Thomas Ille) Richard Strauss's one-act opera Elektra premiered in 1909 and is today one of our most talked about and performed operas. It would still take over a hundred years before the conductor Manfred Honeck and the composer Thomas Ille created this symphonic suite, where the orchestra portrays the different personalities of the opera. We meet Elektra, daughter of King Agamemnon, who wants to avenge her father's death. He has been murdered by his wife Klytaimnestra and her lover Aigisthos. Clytaimnestra justifies the act by saying that Agamemnon sacrificed their eldest daughter, Iphigenia, to get a good wind in the sails on the way to war. With the help of her brother Orestes, Elektra takes out the terrible revenge. The drama by Hugo von Hofmannsthal is based on Sophocles' classic tragedy but is at the same time colored by the currents of early 20th century Vienna. A city characterized by dark urges, awareness of death and Freud's psychoanalytic theories. The powerful and darkly colored opening theme is linked to Agamemnon and recurs as a leitmotif throughout the suite. In the diverse and sonorously colorful music, we can hear Elektra's longing for her murdered father, the nightmares of mother Klytaimnestra, and the return of her brother Orestes is reflected in the passionate and heartfelt melodies of the strings. Elektra's revenge is completed, but the price is high. Elektra dances more and more intensely in joy and triumph and finally collapses dead.

The Gothenburg Symphony was formed in 1905 and today consists of 109 musicians. The orchestra's base is Göteborgs Konserthus, the funk gem at Götaplatsen that has gathered music lovers since 1935. Since the 2017-2018 season, Santtu-Matias Rouvali has been Chief conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony. 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. 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 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.

The German conductor Anja Bihlmaier is BBC Philharmonic's Principal Guest Conductor from 2024. She is also chief conductor of the Residentie Orkest since August 2021. In the 2024-2025 season, she conducts, among others, the Munich Philharmonic, NDR Elbphilharmonie, WDR Cologne, Berlin Konzerthausorchester, Bergen Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Seattle and Toronto Symphony Orchestras, Spanish National Orchestra and Orquesta da Galicia. She returns to the National Symphony in Dublin for Mahler 9 and takes the Residentie Orkest to Bonn to begin a three-year residency at the Beethovenfest. In June 2025, she will conduct a new production at the Berlin State Opera. She made her BBC Proms debut in 2023 and returned in 2024, including Glyndebourne's popular production of Carmen. Notable debuts in recent seasons have included the London Philharmonic, Wiener Symphoniker, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra Washington, Orchester National du Capitole de Toulouse, Mahler Chamber and the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras. Bihlmaier has a wide repertoire and has held positions in Hannover, Chemnitz and Kassel. She has made outstanding opera productions in Malmö, Trondheim, Tampere and Oslo, among others. She is a dear guest of the Gothenburg Symphony and led the orchestra in November 2022 when she conducted Hillborg's Sound Atlas.