Daniel Harding conducts Hillborg and R. Strauss – With Martin Fröst

Daniel Harding conducts the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra live on medici.tv!

The concert opens with the stunning Peacock Tales, a concerto for clarinet and orchestra written by the Swedish composer Anders Hillborg, commissioned by the Swedish Radio Orchestra in 1998 and dedicated to Martin Fröst who has, since then, made it one of the Major pieces of his own repertoire. The work is characterized by sensational melodies – some of them were taken from other composers, as heard with the quote of the aria "E lucevan le stelle" from Tosca. There exist several arrangements of this work, notably a version for clarinet, piano and orchestra, recorded by Martin Fröst in his Dances To a Black Pipe album (2011). There is no doubt that Martin Fröst, who set the stage of the Combins on fire in 2010 with his rendition of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, will be acclaimed with this exceptional work.

Daniel Harding closes this concert with a rendition of Le Bourgeois gentilhomme by Richard Strauss, a composer he is particularly fond of (the medici.tv audience has already heard and seen him conduct Eine Alpensinfonie with the Filarmonica della Scala). This suite for orchestra, written after Mozart's play, was initially meant to give birth to an opera.

© Pictures: Aline Paley.

Daniel Harding appears courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon.

Credits.