Starting in Vienna, Georg Friedrich Haas's music – as fragile as it is sensuous – has made his international name in concert halls and opera houses. He has written a trombone concerto for soloist Mike Svoboda. Svoboda and Haas first met at the Basel Music Academy, and they have been working together ever since. The trombone concerto, however, is all the composer's own work. It questions the standard structure of a solo concerto. The solo trombone plays a leading role, certainly – but you will search in vain for virtuoso passages. While fascinated and inspired by Svoboda's playing, Haas also paid tribute in the work to the memory of one of his clients: the late Armin Köhler, also a trombonist, who for many years was artistic director of the Donaueschingen Festival.  

Anton Bruckner's 4th symphony, the one he called the Romantic, remains his most popular to this day. Accentuated by programmatic notes like 'Song of the great tit', 'Song' and 'Hunt', it became best known and most loved in its simplified second version. It brought Bruckner the success as a symphonic composer that had long eluded him. Bruckner is well known for creating numerous versions of his works. He completed the first version of his 4th symphony in 1874, when he was in financial difficulties. Rejected by the orchestras of the time as too unwieldy and challenging, this original version was not given its first performance until around a hundred years later, in Linz. And one revision was not to be the end of it: Bruckner completed a third version in 1881.