Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Haydn and Beethoven – with Jean-Guihen Queyras

These days conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin is all over the headlines! Currently on tour with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, this summer he took the helm of one of the world’s most prestigious operas, the Metropolitan Opera of New York, succeeding James Levine who has held the position for the past 40 years. In this performance the Quebecois conductor guest conducts at the Philharmonie de Paris.

The concert opens with Haydn’s Sturm und Drang masterpiece, Symphony No. 44. Haydn wanted the work’s third movement, an exceptionally slow Adagio, to be played at his funeral, and over time the symphony has come to be nicknamed "Trauer", the German word for "mourning". Up next on the program is Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major, one of the rare major solo works for cello written during the classical period, here performed by cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras. The last work on the program is Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, a five-movement-long symphony whose 1826 edition included the inscription "Symphonie pastorale ou Souvenir de la vie à la campagne", meaning "Pastoral symphony or souvenir of a life in the country". Each movement is subtitled with Beethoven’s precise suggestions as to its performance.

Photo: Yannick Nézet-Séguin © Hans van der Woerd