Die große Reihe - Tempo, Tempo!

Symphony concert by the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra in the Liederhalle

HONEGGER | Pacific 231
SANDSTRÖM | Trombone Concerto No. 1 "Motorbike Odyssey"
SIBELIUS | Impromptu
BORODIN | Symphony No. 2

Peter Moore, trombone
Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Christian Lindberg

With "Pacific 231", the Swiss composer Arthur Honegger paid homage to a "marvel" of the time in 1923. In the USA, "Pacific" is the name given to steam locomotives with a leading two-axle bogie, three coupled drive axles and a trailing axle. In France, they are referred to as "231" (in Germany as "2'C1'"). Locomotives of this type were the pride of the railroad companies that hauled them in front of their express trains. Honegger felt "a passionate love" for the steel behemoths and wanted to convey their "visual impression" and his "physical well-being".

The Swedish trombonist and conductor Christian Lindberg met his compatriot Jan Sandström for the first time while bathing in a hot spring in Iceland, where they discussed composition, philosophy and the trombone. Lindberg's experiences in the Everglades in Florida, in Australia, in Provence, religion and nature inspired Sandström to write his trombone concerto (premiered in 1989), which presents the soloist as a motorcyclist like the legendary Odysseus on a fantastic journey! It is one of the most frequently performed (over 600 performances) Swedish concertos on the international stage.

After so much modern vehicle technology, it's good to pause for a moment. Jean Sibelius' Impromptu, written in 1893, can be understood as a nostalgic reverie, as an attempt to resist the acceleration of modernity.

It took Alexander Borodin seven years to compose his Second Symphony, not because he was a slow composer, but because he practiced this art on the side. As a professor of chemistry at the Medical and Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg, he had his hands full. Allegedly, according to Borodin's friend Vladimir Stasov, the work is based on a program from which we quote only this: "The scherzo could suggest a fast-paced chase, but it could just as well be a festive scene [...] And the finale is supposed to depict 'the feast of knights [...] and a cheering crowd'."