The horn became an important instrument in German music. Its sound starts Wagner’s “Oberon” and plays the main role in it. In the libretto, based on medieval poem, a knight Huon de Bordeaux fulfills impossible tasks with the help of the fairy king Oberon, whom he calls playing a magic horn. Written fifty years later, Édouard Lalo’s Concerto in D minor stars a cello. The composer gives a virtuoso a chance to thrive, including an ad libitum part, that allows a lot of performer’s own choices. At last the horn and the cello intertwine in Brahms’ Symphony No. 2. That is an hommage for nature and high spirits. His second symphony is a quintessence of a serene, consistent world, unsurpassed ideal, that we crave and try to achieve, never being able to do so.

Concert co-organised and co-financed as part of The Institute of Music and Dance’s programme “Conductor-in-residence”