New Zealand Herald Premier Series: Bach & Brahms

Conductor - Giordano Bellincampi Horn - Stefan Dohr J.S. Bach - Orchestral Suite No.3 Hans Abrahamsen - Horn Concerto (Australasian premiere) Brahms - Symphony No.2 Giordano Bellincampi opens the New Zealand Herald Premier Series with a sparkle of trumpets in Bach’s cheerful Suite, which includes the famous ‘Air on the G string’. Then a major event, a new work by the distinguished Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen, co-commissioned by the APO with the Berlin Philharmonic and played by that orchestra’s Principal Horn, Stefan Dohr. To finish, Brahms’ happiest symphony. Composing his first symphony had been a huge struggle, but when Brahms set to writing the Second he found the music flowed easily onto the manuscript. It’s a song of the high hills in high summer. Horn Concerto commissioned jointly by the Berlin Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia, NHK Symphony (Tokyo), the NTR ZaterdagMatinee (Concertgebouw, Amsterdam) and the Seattle Symphony.