The works featured in this concert tell episodic stories of imagination and passion. In The Noon Witch, Antonín Dvořák turns to a dark Slavic saga. This symphonic poem with Dvořák’s characteristic song-like, folkloric and colourful sound images is pervaded by an unusual amount of dissonant and disruptive notes. The hideous smile of the saga’s main character peeks out from behind these sounds before the initially idyllic nature of the piece turns into the great drama depicting the tragic tale of the child-murdering noon witch.

The life of the Polish-Soviet composer Mieczysław Weinberg was also shaped by tragic episodes. Being Jewish, he had to flee the advancing National Socialists twice and lost his entire family. He was able to establish himself as a composer in Moscow but was subjected to the secret police’s harassment which culminated in a 1953 arrest after spurious accusations. One of his most beautiful and lyrical works was created in precisely this period of political insecurity: the Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 52. On the one hand, this music gives us an inkling of his great mental distress, on the other, it radiates an equally strong life-affirming energy. These imaginative and emotional ups and downs will be performed by Min Suk Cho, solo cellist of the State Orchestra of Lower Saxony.

The creation of his Symphony No.1 framed a long period in the life of Johannes Brahms. For decades, the composer struggled with high expectations, self-doubt and perfectionism. Having finally presented the first sketches of his long-harboured symphonic endeavours in 1862, it was to take another 14 years until they were completed. But the efforts paid off: This partly serious, partly luxuriating, but always fully resounding work was to become one of the most frequently performed symphonies of the Romantic orchestra repertoire. The State Orchestra of Lower Saxony Hanover, its conductor Stephan Zilias and the audience will surely look forward to the great, splendid finale – which reveals an orientation towards Beethoven – with equal excitement.