Pablo Heras-Casado
Vilde Frang Kristine Tjøgersen
Robert Schumann
Igor Stravinsky

In the darkness, fireflies blink their secret messages, each species with its own language of light. But light pollution is making it increasingly difficult for them to find each other, and they are now threatened. Kristine Tjøgersen has translated this fragile language of nature into music, in which the orchestra itself blinks with LED lights in choreographed patterns. From the vulnerable dance of the fireflies, we move on to other kinds of encounters and magical creatures: Robert Schumann's violin concerto was written during a happy period of close friendships, but kept hidden for more than 80 years. And in Stravinsky's The Firebird, we enter a fantasy world where a prince is saved by a blazing bird in a garden taken over by evil.

Tjøgersen: Bioluminescence

Kristine Tjøgersen's Bioluminescence is a beautiful musical depiction of one of nature's most spectacular phenomena: the luminous dance of the firefly. Each firefly species has its own unique blinking pattern, which it uses to find others in the dark. As human-caused light pollution spreads across ever larger areas, it becomes increasingly difficult for fireflies to find one another. This has made them an endangered species.

Bioluminescence takes place in darkness. The musicians blink rhythms and movements with LED lights, choreographed according to the language of the fireflies.

Kristine Tjøgersen (b. 1982) is the Oslo Philharmonic's composer in residence from 2026 to 2029. Bioluminescence was written in 2017.

Schumann: Violin Concerto

In the early 1850s, Robert and Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Joseph Joachim formed a close friendship. Robert Schumann (1810–1856) wrote the violin concerto for Joachim in 1853, during a period when these friendships gave Schumann energy and joy. Sadly, he attempted to take his own life only a few months later, and the good days never returned.

Joseph Joachim never wished to perform the concerto and kept it hidden from the world until his death. More than 80 years passed before it was performed for the first time. Despite Schumann's tragic fate, it is worth remembering that the violin concerto was in fact written at a time when Schumann was experiencing moments of happiness.

Stravinsky: The Firebird

In the ballet The Firebird, we find ourselves in a garden where beauty has been replaced by evil. We meet a heroic prince, thirteen princesses held captive by an evil sorcerer, and the magical creature "the Firebird", who comes to the prince's aid in his hour of need. The music Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) wrote for the ballet is often described as a work of genius. He combines late-Romantic sonorities and Russian folk melodies, while just beginning to explore stylistic features that foreshadow modernism.

The Firebird premiered in 1910 and was an immediate success. Stravinsky lived a long life and went on to conduct The Firebird in various versions nearly 1,000 times.