Sibelius Symphony No. 7
R. Strauss Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra
Brahms Symphony No. 2

DANIELE RUSTIONI CONDUCTOR
NICHOLAS DANIEL OBOE

Very few composers manage to evoke the landscape of their homeland in the way that seems to come so effortlessly to Sibelius – it's difficult to listen to his Seventh Symphony without imagining yourself in the epic forests and below the vast skies of the Finnish landscape.

Richard Strauss’s Oboe Concerto makes the most of the pastoral qualities of the solo instrument, keeping us outdoors. And the pastoral mood continues with Brahms’s cheerful, soaring Second Symphony. Brahms himself wrote in the symphony’s manuscript “Es liebt sich so lieblich im Lenze!” (“It’s so lovely to be in love in the springtime!”), and this concert looks forward to those days to come.