Göteborgs Konserthus Smoking Fresh with Simone Young

Connor D'Netto (b. 1994) Uncertain Planning Australian Connor D'Netto composes contemporary classical music at the intersection of experimental electronics, ambient and electroacoustic music. He likes to combine acoustic instruments, guitar pedals and DIY instruments. His music has been performed by the LA Phil and commissioned by a range of ensembles in Australia. D'Netto describes his style as a balance between "driving rhythm, lush orchestration and sensitive incorporation of electronics", in an attempt to connect different target groups in society. Uncertain Planning was commissioned by the Sydney Symphony and premiered by Simone Young. The work was written during the 2020 pandemic and depicts the straitjacket of isolation and the experience of living in insecurity. “A broken world spun outside my window and the uncertainty outside inevitably spilled in – anxious stillness, distant, constant worry and unawareness; overwhelming frustration, burning anger; mild hope and burning determination.” Jenny Svensson

Alban Berg (1885-1935) Seven early songs Night Schilflied The Nightingale Crowned with trauma Im Zimmer Liebesode Summer days Of Alban Berg's total of 88 lieder, most were composed between the ages of 16 and 24. 70 constituted composition studies during his apprenticeship with Arnold Schönberg. In October 1904, Berg began to practice in a civil service making statistics on the need for macadam and on animal imports to cover the need for brush horse. On the side, he studied economics at the University of Vienna. His sister Smaragda and brother Charly saw Schönberg's and Alexander Zemlinsky's advertisement for teaching music theory and secretly went there to showcase some of Alban's songs. Schönberg offered to accept the 19-year-old student without any claim to fees. When Berg's wealthy aunt died in November 1905 (she left, among other things, eight tenements in Vienna and a large estate), he was given the opportunity to devote himself to music full-time. In the same winter, he made his debut as a composer by accompanying his sister in the song Die Nachtigall at the opening of a widow's and children's home. As the real debut, however, he would count a concert on 7 November 1907 with works also by other Schönberg students. Then a fugue for string quintet and piano was performed, as well as Liebesode, Die Nachtigall and Traumgekrönt. The fugue was applauded but the songs received a very lukewarm reception. The orchestral arrangement that you usually hear nowadays was not added until 1928, when seven songs were printed in both versions. The premiere of the orchestral version was given on 6 November of the same year in Vienna. The critic Korngold (father of the composer Erich Wolfgang) expressed in the Neue Freie Presse his sympathy for Berg's always serious, characterful, free artistry but found the orchestral movement "despite slightly rebellious Mahlerian flecks of color" to be strikingly "sonorous". The best results were the "fine and atmospheric" Die Nachtigall, which reminded Korngold of Schumann, as well as Im Zimmer "which could almost have been by Hugo Wolf". In the same autumn, the songs with Ruzena Herlinger and the composer at the grand piano were a great success in Paris, alongside his Lyrical Suite and episodes from the opera Wozzeck. The critics now had almost nothing but praise for the songs which "despite their absolute freedom clearly rest on tonal principles". But Berg's Chamber Concerto for piano, violin and 13 wind instruments had a few days earlier been played in the Salle Pleyel. Rolf Haglund

JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897) SYMPHONY NO. 4 IN E MINOR OP 98 Allegro non troppo Andante moderato Allegro giocoso Allegro energico e passionato (Tema con variazioni) Brahms liked to spend his summers composing, and in 1884 and 1885 he stayed in the small alpine town of Mürzzuschlag south of Vienna, where during the warm months he composed his last symphony, the Fourth. Eventually he himself conducted the first performance of the work. This took place in Meiningen on October 25, 1885, but was not an immediate success, even though Brahms once again composed melodically accurate and thoughtfully orchestrated music. What made it all a bit dubious was that the music was not particularly easy to buy at all. The audience found too much melancholy and there was talk of autumn music. The simile is actually not so crazy at all, if you also consider that autumn is not only dark, but also has strong colors. It has been said that at this time Brahms was studying the ancient Greek tragedian Sophocles' drama Oedipus in detail, and possibly some of the moods from there have crept into the music. Today, Brahms's Fourth Symphony has a high status. It is regarded as the crown of a very symphonic creation, and as the testament of a master. It is a deep, gentle and slightly resigned music with rare well-balanced form and character. And the finale has been especially admired with its eight-bar passacaglia theme presented by the brass in rigorously executed and artful variations. STIG JACOBSSON

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. Sten Cranner 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.

Simone Young is Principal Conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. She was General Director and Music Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Music Director of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg 2005-2015. Her Hamburg recordings include the Ringcycle, Mathis der Maler (Hindemith), and symphonies by Bruckner, Brahms and Mahler. She is a recognized interpreter of Wagner's and Strauss's operas. In the summer of 2024, she will be the first woman to conduct Wagner's entire Ring cycle at the famous festival in Bayreuth. This season she returns to the philharmonic orchestras in Berlin, LA, Oslo and Stockholm, the Orchester National de France, the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, Madrid, Gothenburg, Dallas, the Washington National Symphony Orchestra and the Orchester Suisse Romande. As an opera conductor, she is a guest at La Scala (Peter Grimes), the Metropolitan Opera New York (Die Rosenkavalier), the Vienna State Opera (Die Fledermaus etc.) and the Berlin State Opera (Mussorgsky's Chovanshchina). She will also lead the ANAM Orchestra in their co-production with Victorian Opera in Strauss's Capriccio. Simone Young is regularly invited by the world's major orchestras and has also led philharmonic orchestras in New York, Vienna, Munich, Japan, Helsinki and Dresden, Orchester Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, Orchester de Paris, Staatskapelle Dresden, BBC Symphony and orchestras in San Francisco, Cincinnati, Detroit and Chicago. In Australia she has conducted the West Australian, Adelaide, Melbourne and Queensland Symphony Orchestras and the Australian World Orchestra. Simone Young has been Music Director of Opera Australia, Principal Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Lisbon and Lausanne Chamber Orchestra. Her many honors include Honorary Member of the Vienna State Opera, the 2019 European Culture Prize in Vienna and a professorship at the Musikhochschule in Hamburg. Simone Young was last guest of the Gothenburg Symphony in 2016 at a performance of Mozart's Requiem.

Swiss soprano Flurina Stucki has been part of the ensemble at the Deutsche Oper Berlin since the 2019-2020 season. She has appeared in Don Giovanni, the premiere of Zad Moultaka's Delirio, Die Fledermaus, Elektra and the new Ringcycle for the Deutsche Oper Berlin. In the spring of 2021, she celebrated a great success at Teater Basel in the role of Christine Storch in Richard Strauss's Intermezzo. In the 2022-2023 season, she was heard in Graz in Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss and as a soprano in a staged version of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem. Flurina Stucki also appeared in Deutsche Oper Berlin's Songs and Poets series, including Messiaen's Harawi with John Parr. Her concert repertoire includes major orchestral literature such as Wagner's Wesendonck Songs and Verdi's Requiem.