Thursday 10.10.2024 at 18.30

SINFONIA LAHTI
MASAAKI SUZUKI, conductor

Johann Sebastian Bach: Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068
Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 44, ‘Trauer’
Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 5, ‘Reformation’

In January 2023 Masaaki Suzuki impressed the Lahti audience with his performance of Johannes Brahms’s German Requiem. The Japanese conductor now returns to Lahti with an emotional programme that reaches for the heights.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3 is secular music, but it too was written ‘Soli Deo Gloria’, to the glory of God alone. One of the most famous movements in music, the Air is just one of many highlights in this suite.

Joseph Haydn, who composed over a hundred symphonies, amused his audiences with his musical jokes. But not always: his Symphony No. 44 in E minor was so poignant and tempestuous that it had to be given the additional title ‘Trauer’ (Mourning), as a content warning. Symphony No. 5 in D major is Felix Mendelssohn’s most profound work in this genre. Written for the 300th anniversary of the Reformation, the work reflects the composer’s rare talent for mature, devotional melodies even though he was only 20 when he wrote it.