About the Concert

Giya Kancheli is less well-known in Western Europe than Arvo Pärt, although they are musically quite similar! The silence of their music, its often meditative character, the slow melodies, and the dark intensity of the musical moods unfold a comparable sound world.  Violinist Lisa Batiashvili takes her audience to the North with the violin concerto by the Finn Jean Sibelius. It has often been called a "landscape of ice and fire," and indeed it seems to combine the vastness, coldness, and loneliness of Scandinavian landscapes with energy and strength. Mendelssohn's "Italian Symphony," on the other hand, brims with enthusiasm and joy of life. The composer was not such a big fan of Italy, "Italy makes me tired," he once confessed. But he was inspired by Italian dances, southern temperament, and even the singing of passing nuns for the scherzo. At its premiere in 1833, the London audience was so enthusiastic that its success went "viral" 184 years before TikTok, and it has not waned to this day.