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Migration

18 July — 6 September 2025

Cycle «Change III» 2023 — 2025

Symphony Concert

Friday, 10 August 2018
7.30 pm, Gstaad Festival Tent

Brahms found great inspiration during his stays in Switzerland, particularly on the shores of Lake Thun! And he came upon the celebrated forte theme for horn at the beginning of the fourth movement of his first symphony (composed during the summer of 1868) during an excursion to Rigi on Lake Lucerne. He jotted it down on a birthday card to Clara Schumann, saying that he had heard it played by an Alphorn during his ascent in the Alps. He added the words “high on the mountain, deep in the valley, I greet you a thousandfold”. A very appropriate symphony for the 2018 edition of the Festival with its Alpine colors. The symphony is preceded by his likewise monumental First Piano Concerto with soloist Hélène Grimaud, who made her debut in Gstaad with the same work in the same Festival Tent together with Hugh Wolff and the Radio Orchestra Frankfurt… 15 years ago!  

Hélène Grimaud, Piano
Gstaad Festival Orchestra
Jaap van Zweden, Conductor

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) 
Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 1550'
– Interval – 
Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68 50'
 120'
  
CHF 160 / 135 / 95 / 65