NHK Symphony Orchestra

With the world-famous symphony orchestra of the “Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai”, the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation, Maestro Fabio Luisi, chief conductor of the traditional orchestra since September 2022, honors the series of master concerts
for the grand season finale. The program begins with Tōru Takemitsu, a Japanese composer who made Western compositional techniques and instrumental sonorities his own. From his extensive oeuvre of film music
we get to hear a 1994 compilation of three scores. These include the “Funeral Music” from “Black Rain”, a cinematic drama from 1989 that deals with the consequences of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and
the “Waltz” from “Face of Another”, a work of the so-called “Japanese New Wave” from 1966.
This is followed by a performance by the wonderful Akiko Suwanai, who, after winning the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1990, went on to enjoy a rare career and has attracted worldwide attention with her extremely wide-ranging repertoire. In Innsbruck, she will play Alban Berg's iconic Violin Concerto from 1935, which he wrote in memory of Manon, the daughter of Alma Mahler and Walter Gropius, who died at the age of just 18.
The concerto concludes with a work of which its composer once wrote: “In general, unfortunately, my pieces are more pleasant than mine, and there is less to correct? But in this region the cherries are not sweet and edible - so if you don't like it, don't be embarrassed. I am not at all eager to write a bad No. 4.” (Johannes Brahms to Elisabeth von Herzogenberg, Mürzzuschlag, August 25, 1885)