Belgian National Orchestra, Schønwandt & Tetzlaff

Obsessed with Finnish sagas, lakes and forests, Sibelius’s Violin Concerto combines a late-Romantic style with a modern Nordic sound aesthetic. German violinist Christian Tetzlaff, who made a name for himself in Bozar in June 2021 with a phenomenal interpretation of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, is the dream soloist for Sibelius’s most famous work. Associate conductor Michael Schønwandt has long been an ambassador for Danish composer Carl Nielsen. In this concert with the Belgian National Orchestra, he performs Nielsen’s Third Symphony, the work that gave him his national and international breakthrough in 1912. The second movement of this symphony, with wordless solos for soprano and baritone, captures the peaceful, heavenly mood of nature before the Fall.