Wien 1901 – Beethoven 250
Bomsori Kim, Frankfurt Radio Symphony & Alain Altinoglu

Symphony Concert

Friday, 2 September 2022
7.30 pm, Gstaad Festival Tent

She is one of the members of the exclusive Deutsche Grammophon family and also became part of the new group of “Menuhin's Heritage Artists” last year, which allows us to follow her artistic journey at the Festival for five years. After two most impressive performances in 2021, Bomsori Kim will return to the Festival this year with one of the finest solo concertos ever composed: Beethoven's Violin Concerto! The conductor of this concert is Alain Altinoglu, who will also, together with the musicians of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, present the incomparable Symphony No. 4 by Mahler. Written at the turn of the century, this monumental work stands out by its cheerful moments (with a rather classical orchestration combined with the use of “folk” elements such as bells or a violin soloist who is supposed to tune each of the strings a full step higher than usual), but also has the particularity of ending with a fourth movement in the form of an orchestral lied, the material of which is borrowed from the Knaben Wunderhorn cycle which he completed a few years earlier. Called Das himmlische Leben (The heavenly life), this lied, entrusted to a soprano, has the clearly expressed vocation of making us touch ... this is pure heaven!