Märchenhaft

Two contemporary female composers and two modern classics. With Entr'acte, Caroline Shaw evokes a sense of being in Alice in Wonderland: the seemingly familiar is seen in a new light. Outi Tarkiainen's The Rapids of Life is about nothing less than a birth and the intense experiences associated with it. An extremely personal piece about the beginnings of life. Pekka Kuusisto also conducts Maurice Ravel's Ma mère l'Oye. A collection of fairy tales as an orchestral work? Yes, because Ravel originally presented the pieces as little piano pieces to the children of a couple who were friends of his. Béla Bartók's highly expressive First Violin Concerto has a love story behind it. The composer dedicated it to the violinist Stefi Geyer, who never played it, however.