deFilharmonie . Edo De Waart

There is no one better placed to conduct John Adams' 'Harmonielehre' than Edo de Waart, who also conducted the première of this work with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 1985. 'Harmonielehre' became well-known as an icon of minimalist music. Even after more than twenty years, this work has lost nothing of its freshness and musical eloquence. It combines the repetitive motorism and the simple harmonic structure of minimalism with the rich orchestral sound and the effectiveness in portraying the emotions of late Romanticism. This combination of styles is also prominent in Stravinsky's 'Symphony in Three Movements', a work that can be considered the equivalent of the 'Sacre du Printemps' as seen through the neo-Baroque and neo-Classical eye of the older Stravinsky. It is a restless stream of constant rhythmical changes and harmonious transformations. In the first section, the piano plays a prominent role while in the second all the attention shifts to the harp. The third section sees the two instruments join the seemingly separate sections together to round it off into a symphonic whole.