Music as a bridge and cultural mediator: Semyon Bychkov condcuts the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra at this year's Nobel Prize Concert on December 8 at Konserthuset Stockholm. The annual concert forms part of the official programme during Nobel Week and is a tribute to the year’s Nobel Laureates.
The programme features young Spanish violinist María Dueñas as the soloist in Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s Violin Concerto in E minor, followed by Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony (From the New World) after the interval. Opening the concert is Bryce Dessner's Mari, a work which took shape during solitary walks in the French countryside in the pandemic years – a musical meditation on the transience of life. Dessner has dedicated the piece to Bychkov and even incorporated a melody from Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony. The title, however, refers to the Basque forest goddess Mari.
"Mari is a reflection on the pastoral, and it weaves together several textures and fragments of material from historic works through a kind of abstraction and altered context to something new, most audibly a melody from the first movement of the New World Symphony by Dvorak and textures from the 4th movement of Mahler’s sublime Symphony No. 3. My work is named after the Basque goddess of the forest, Mari.
As a concert opener, it felt appropriate to let these notes pass through my fingers and open a new doorway through which my own voice could emerge. The music of Dvorak and Mahler feels timeless but also distinctly modern, especially now as we emerge again into a new world and listen for what comes next."
- Bryce Dessner
