Bernstein and Berlioz

Violinist Clara-Jumi Kang returns to the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra several times this season – this is her third production with the orchestra, each time under the baton of Chief Conductor Ryan Bancroft, with whom she has frequently collaborated in recent years.

Born in Germany and of South Korean heritage, Clara-Jumi Kang was recognised early on as a prodigy. She began playing the violin at the age of three and was admitted to the Mannheim University of Music at four – the youngest student ever in the institution’s history.

This time, we hear Clara-Jumi Kang in Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade for violin, strings, harp and percussion, composed in 1954. It is a colourful work inspired by Plato’s Symposium, with each movement reflecting one of the philosophical speakers in the dialogue. Bernstein blends neoclassical clarity with jazz-inflected vitality. The Serenade is one of his most personal compositions and a central work in the violin repertoire – essentially a violin concerto in disguise.

Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique is a work ablaze with energy, passion and feverish desire. It tells the story of a young, sensitive musician who, in despair, poisons himself with opium. The object of his love becomes a recurring melody – an idée fixe – that haunts him throughout the symphony.