Tchaikovsky’s *The Nutcracker* lights up the auditorium in the run-up to Christmas: dance, fairy tales, sweets and orchestral splendour come together to create one of those great classics that you never tire of hearing.
This makes it all the more exciting to see how this evening sheds new light on this familiar classic. Ethel Smyth emerges as a significant artist alongside Stravinsky, Debussy and the women’s rights movement – a feisty, headstrong figure and anything but a marginal figure. And with Nielsen’s Flute Concerto, DüSy soloist Lilja Steininger brings the programme to a close with a piece from 1926: a hidden gem alongside a pre-Christmas classic.
Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra; Lilja Steininger, flute; Holly Hyun Choe, conductor
Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker. Ballet Suite, Op. 71a; Carl Nielsen: Concerto for Flute and Orchestra; Ethel Smyth: Serenade
