The Cleveland Orchestra & Franz Welser-Möst

The Cleveland Orchestra, one of the world’s most renowned symphony orchestras, will perform a second concert at Helsinki Festival. In addition to the previously announced concert, the orchestra will perform at Helsinki Music Centre on 29 August, featuring Sergei Prokofiev’s Second Symphony and Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique.

The Cleveland Orchestra, one of the world’s most prestigious symphony orchestras and one of the “Big Five” United States orchestras, returns to Finland for the first time in nearly 60 years. The orchestra, which has rarely visited the Nordic countries, last performed in Finland in 1965. 

Founded in 1918, the orchestra enters its 23rd season led by top Austrian conductor Franz Welser-Möst, who also led the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in a memorable performance at the 2015 Helsinki Festival.

The Cleveland Orchestra is regarded as one of the world’s best orchestras, and in 2020, The New York Times named it the best in America. Under Welser-Möst, the orchestra has been honed to its technical and artistic peak.

First performed in Paris in 1925, Prokofiev’s Second Symphony is renowned for its rhythmic power and the influence of the European avant-garde of its time – Prokofiev himself described the work as a vision of “iron and steel”. 

Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique has established itself as one of the most important orchestral works of the 19th century. In this work, Berlioz pioneered new orchestral practices and techniques to achieve dreamlike and opium-infused visions previously unheard in Western music.

The Cleveland Orchestra
Franz Welser-Möst, conductor

Programme:

Sergei Prokofiev: Symphony No. 2 in D minor, Op. 40
Hector Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14