Eva and Arngunnur

The 'Jupiter' Symphony is last and largest of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's symphonies. It is also, according to many, not only his best symphony, but the greatest symphony of the entire classical period, and opens this varied and unusual programme, led by Eva Ollikainen. The evening's soloist is Arngunnur Árnadóttir, principal clarinettist of the ISO, whose interpretation of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in 2015 was praised by Fréttablaðið's music critic as "one of the most beautiful things I have heard in a long time [...] It was a stunning performance." 

On this programme, Arngunnur presents two different but equally evocative French compositions for the clarinet. The first is the Abyss of the Birds from the Quartet for the End of Time by Olivier Messiaen, a piece written and premiered while the composer was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. It is a solo movement without accompaniment; a kind of monologue of the soul where light and shadows meet. Directly succeeding is the Première rhapsodie for clarinet and orchestra by Claude Debussy, a colourful masterpiece that makes incredible demands of the soloist. The concert concludes with Richard Strauss's philosophical tone poem Death and Transfiguration, contemplating the deepest question of what awaits us beyond this world.