Esa-Pekka Salonen returns to the Palau de la Música Catalana, this time at the helm of the Philharmonia Orchestra, an ensemble with which he has enjoyed a close and fruitful artistic relationship. A leading figure in contemporary conducting, the Finnish maestro has headed some of the world’s major musical institutions and preceded Gustavo Dudamel as Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His return to the Palau once again brings before audiences one of the most distinctive and acclaimed conductors of recent decades.

Alongside him, Leif Ove Andsnes, a pianist with a deep understanding of Beethoven’s musical world, performs the Piano Concerto No. 3. The Norwegian pianist has made Beethoven’s music one of the central strands of his career and now returns to it at the Palau with a work in which the Classical heritage still resonates, while Beethoven begins to assert an increasingly personal, intense and ambitious voice. A particularly congenial territory for a pianist who has devoted a significant part of his career to exploring and rethinking Beethoven’s music.

Bruckner’s Symphony No. 6 takes the programme into another dimension. One of the Austrian composer’s most distinctive works, it is monumental in scale yet also rich in contrasts, lyricism and powerful architectural design. Salonen, Andsnes and the Philharmonia Orchestra thus come together in a programme that unites two essential moments in the history of European symphonic music: from Beethoven’s transformative impulse to Bruckner’s vast sonic horizons.