The Shimmering Colours of an Orchestra

Besides its composers, the history of classical music is also the story of its performers. Without them, there are only the printed scores. Silence. There are soloists and, of course, symphonic, or baroque orchestras, who have left their mark and reached such levels of excellence that any performance is a major drawing card, quite apart from the programme.

The Vienna Philharmonic is one of these orchestras. Its origins date to 1842 when Otto Nicolai founded what he called a “Philharmonic Academy”. The orchestra has been perfected by titans such as Hans Richter, Gustav Mahler, Felix von Weingartner, Wilhelm Furtwängler or Clemens Krauss, to name a few of its conductors.

“It is one of the most outstanding (orchestras) in the world” was the comment by Richard Wagner. And Richard Strauss went further: “All praise of the Vienna Philharmonic reveals itself as an understatement”. A private association, this orchestra is linked to the Vienna State Opera in a symbiotic relationship that guarantees the independence of the musicians, hence its high level of artistic performance.

Robust yet delicate, morbid yet tender, to listen to the Vienna Philharmonic, is to enter into its enthralling and rich universe of sound, it is a singular experience. In Sevilla, the Austrian ensemble will be conducted by Lorenzo Viotti, director of the Netherlands Philharmonic, and one of the world’s acclaimed young conductors. On the programme of Russian and Slavic music is The Isle of the Dead, a perturbing Symphonic poem (1908) by Serguei Rajmaninov which illustrates the anguished personality of its composer; Capriccio español (1887) by Rimski-Korsakov, inspired by Spanish folk melodies experienced during his travels as an official in the Russian Navy; and Symphony No. 7 (1885) of Antonín Dvořák, one of his most profound and mature works.