Opening Concert Musiksommer 2026

MDR-Sinfonieorchester
Carlo Lay - cello | Dennis Russell Davies - conductor

Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
"In der Natur" concert overture op. 91
"Waldesruhe" for cello and orchestra op. 68, 5
Rondo in G minor for cello and orchestra op. 94
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
"Waldweben" (from: "Siegfried" WWV 86)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Symphony No. 6 in F major op. 68 "Pastoral"

The forest has long been a symbolic space and a source of inspiration for creative minds. In European art music it carries a particular power, moving between nature observation, mythic elevation, and the mirror of the inner self. Beethoven's Pastoral explores the sonic possibilities of a landscape as a whole - drone-like tones and imitated birdsong conjure the forest. Dvořák, by contrast, plays with shifts of light, emphasising transitions between brightness and darkness, life and death, freedom and threat, weaving an acoustic myth: the forest as a place not merely heard, but felt.