SIR JOHN ELIOT GARDINER

Sir John Eliot Gardiner

John Eliot Gardiner’s encounter with the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana last season proved an unprecedented artistic success, forging an ongoing relationship between the orchestra and the legendary conductor. On his second visit, Gardiner presents an evocative programme bringing together two contemporary works by Mahler and Sibelius, preceded by Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 2. A journey from darkness into light: Beethoven recounts Florestan’s triumphant rescue from unjust imprisonment, while Mahler seeks to cast a ray of hope over death in the Kindertotenlieder, performed here by British mezzo-soprano Alice Coote, a renowned Mahler interpreter who has recorded this and other cycles by the composer with Marc Albrecht. Sibelius, in one of his masterpieces, Symphony No. 2, captures the soul of a hopeful nation, Finland, in a journey through the lush Nordic landscapes of the opening movement, the shadow of death looming in the second, and finally a heroic and triumphant conclusion overflowing with splendour and sonic beauty.