On tour with Klaus Mäkelä and Janine Jansen

Music by Schumann, Britten, Purcell and Dowland

on tour

The Concertgebouw Orchestra, its future chief conductor Klaus Mäkelä and Janine Jansen join forces in Britten’s Violin Concerto. The orchestra also performs Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 and music by Dowland and Purcell...

With her extraordinary aptitude for capturing mood and atmosphere, violinist Janine Jansen is the perfect interpreter of Britten’s Concerto.

Concert programme

  • Henry Purcell

    Mars from 'Funeral Music for Queen Mary'

  • Benjamin Britten

    Violin Concerto

  • -- interval --

  • John Dowland

    Lachrymae antiquae from 'Lachrimae, or Seaven Tears'

  • Robert Schumann

    Symphony No. 2

Performers

About this concert

Conductor Klaus Mäkelä says that a concert is like a journey through time. The composers featured on this programme were clearly inspired by older music. Robert Schumann had just suffered a nervous breakdown when he wrote his Symphony No. 2, a work in which he documents his recovery and overtly draws on the music of Bach, Haydn and Beethoven.

Benjamin Britten’s music, in which the influence of older English masters is always palpable, is also in dialogue with the past. His Violin Concerto juxtaposes tradition with present-day circumstances: the year was 1939, and the threat of war imminent. With her extraordinary aptitude for capturing mood and atmosphere, violinist Janine Jansen is the perfect interpreter.

Klaus Mäkelä says, ‘In Schumann’s music I always feel an aspect of the past, tradition, history. Britten too admired tradition. We make a combination with works from the 17th century by Purcell and Dowland, to prepare the atmosphere of the later works by Britten and Schumann, which contain the past. I think the music benefits from it. The cathedral-like, almost sacred atmosphere of Dowland and Purcell enhances those aspects in Schumann and Britten, putting their works in a different light.’

Dates and tickets

About this concert

Conductor Klaus Mäkelä says that a concert is like a journey through time. The composers featured on this programme were clearly inspired by older music. Robert Schumann had just suffered a nervous breakdown when he wrote his Symphony No. 2, a work in which he documents his recovery and overtly draws on the music of Bach, Haydn and Beethoven.

Benjamin Britten’s music, in which the influence of older English masters is always palpable, is also in dialogue with the past. His Violin Concerto juxtaposes tradition with present-day circumstances: the year was 1939, and the threat of war imminent. With her extraordinary aptitude for capturing mood and atmosphere, violinist Janine Jansen is the perfect interpreter.

Klaus Mäkelä says, ‘In Schumann’s music I always feel an aspect of the past, tradition, history. Britten too admired tradition. We make a combination with works from the 17th century by Purcell and Dowland, to prepare the atmosphere of the later works by Britten and Schumann, which contain the past. I think the music benefits from it. The cathedral-like, almost sacred atmosphere of Dowland and Purcell enhances those aspects in Schumann and Britten, putting their works in a different light.’

A preview