A concert featuring two monuments in the repertoire, elegantly escorted by rarely performed gems of choral music: Nänie and the radiant Hymn of the Cherubim.  

Composed by Brahms in 1880 after the death of his painter friend Anselm Feuerbach, Nänie is a funeral song for chorus and orchestra, a very demanding piece to perform, in which the composer expresses both the pain of grief and hope for consolation.

With its highly lyrical initial theme and sober virtuosity, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto is a pillar in the repertoire, a work at once voluble, intimate, and full of spontaneity.

After the moving Hymn of the Cherubim for a cappella choir, part of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom by Tchaikovsky, for whom Orthodox ritual held great significance, the programme concludes with his imposing Symphony No.4. With its cyclical conception, and by the composer’s own admission, this opus symbolises the illusory but obstinate quest for happiness in an existence ruled by fate.