Norwegian National Youth Orchestra’s

chamber orchestra

Festival Academy of Bergen

Following their absorbing journey through winter landscapes at last year’s festival, the chamber orchestra of the National Youth Orchestra of Norway returns for a mouthwatering programme in the atmospheric surroundings of the University Aula under esteemed Norwegian conductor Arvid Engegård.  

In the dramatic, turbulent, joyous and propulsive final three symphonies by Mozart we begin to hear the struggles and victories that would characterise the great symphonies of Beethoven, Mahler and beyond. Mozart’s No. 40, the middle of his final trilogy, is a compelling, energetic journey through contrasts to unification. When he wrote his Chamber Symphony No. 1 in the same city, Vienna, Schoenberg set out to achieve the same clarity and density as Mozart. It may sound like a Rubik’s Cube, but every single bar of the piece bursts with life and argument.  

In between the two comes a work from the composer whose ecstatic music has woven its way through the Festival programme, Olivier Messiaen. The final movement of the composer’s four-part orchestral work L’Ascension is an etheral, contemplative meditation on Christ’s ascent into heaven that like every work from this composer, reflects his strong faith and draws its audience into a deeply contemplative realm.

Top image: Norwegian National Youth Orchestra's chamber orchestra. Photo: Ole Wuttudal

Supported by

Contributors

• The Norwegian National Youth Orchestra

• Arvid Engegård conductor

Works

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
  Symphony no. 40 in G minor, K. 550
  1. Molto allegro
  2. Andante
  3. Menuetto: Allegretto
  4. Allegro assai

• Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992)
  From L’Ascension
  Prière du Christ montant vers son Père 

• Arnold Schönberg (1874–1951)
  Chamber Symphony no. 1, op. 9
  (1 movement in 5 sections)
  1. Sonata. Allegro
  2. Scherzo
  3. Development
  4. Adagio
  5. Recapitulation and finale