Programme:

Giuseppe Verdi: Overture to La forza del destino
Luciano Berio: Folk Songs
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Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73

Founded in Rome in 1908, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia was the first Italian orchestra to dedicate itself exclusively to the symphonic repertoire and has consequently given the premiere performances of numerous twentieth-century masterpieces, including works by Respighi, Henze and Pärt. With eminent names such as Mahler, Debussy, Strauss, Toscanini, Furtwängler and Karajan among its past conductors, the orchestra will be led on this occasion by the British conductor Daniel Harding, the winner of a Grammy Award in 2009, who became its new music director in October 2024. The soloist will be the Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená, Gramophone’s Artist of the Year in 2004, whose repertoire runs from the Baroque to the twentieth century. The evening will begin with the overture to Giuseppe Verdi’s »cursed« opera La forza del destino. This will be followed by the song cycle Folk Songs by the avant-garde composer Luciano Berio, consisting of arrangements of traditional music from the United States of America, Armenia, France, Italy and Azerbaijan. The concert will resume after the interval with Symphony No. 2 by Johannes Brahms, which in contrast to the composer’s first symphony radiates warmth and melodiousness, interspersed with melancholy. While Brahms took 21 years to complete his first symphony, he composed the second in the summer of 1877 while staying in the Austrian province of Carinthia.

• Daniel Harding is a qualified airline pilot.
• American composer Leonard Bernstein was the honorary president of the orchestra from 1983 to 1990.
• In 2003 the French Government made Magdalena Kožená a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for her services to French music.
• Daniel Harding succeeds Sir Antonio Pappano, who was the orchestra’s music director from 2005 to 2023 and appeared at last year’s 72nd Ljubljana Festival.