Strauss and Elgar

Soprano Christina Nilsson is a familiar guest at Konserthuset Stockholm. Most recently, she appeared in February 2025 as soloist with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4. She also made a highly acclaimed debut in the title role of Verdi’s Aida at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. On this occasion, we hear her in a selection of songs by Richard Strauss.

La nuit et l’amour is by the French composer Augusta Holmès (1847–1903). The work was originally part of her large-scale choral and orchestral piece Ludus pro patria, composed for the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889. This is dreamlike and sensuous music, evoking her French contemporaries such as Saint-Saëns and Massenet, as well as the flowing melodicism of Wagner.

Edward Elgar’s Symphony No. 2 from 1911 is a work of deep emotion and great personal significance. Unlike the heroic tone of his First Symphony, this second symphony is more introspective and tinged with melancholy. Elgar himself described it as “a passionate pilgrimage of the heart.” The profoundly moving slow movement is a tribute to the recently deceased King Edward VII. Although it received a mixed response at its premiere, the symphony is now firmly established in the British orchestral repertoire – a kind of soundtrack to the final golden days of Edwardian England, and to the inevitable change that followed.

The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra is conducted by Danish-born Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, Chief Conductor of the Orchestre National de Lyon, who also continues to enjoy a distinguished parallel career as a violinist at the highest international level.