Oslo
Philharmonic
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Mellomspill

Like all other musicians and music lovers, we long for regular concerts with an audience in the hall! Unfortunately, this is not possible before the summer.

While we wait, we offer the best we have: a digital series of concerts from Oslo Concert Hall.

In this concert series, an ever-increasing number of Oslo Philharmonic musicians will populate our regular concert scene, until we can complete the series with full orchestra and audience in the hall.

Complete program: Mellomspill: Concert program

The Magic Forest

The Magic Forest is a new musical adventure that gets its premiere as a digital concert on Saturday 23rd May at 10:00.

Text and narrator: Beate Brox

Composer: Bjørn Morten Christophersen

Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth Symphony

In 2020, it is 250 years since Ludwig van Beethoven's birth, and it is marked throughout the year by musicians and symphony orchestras all over the world.

On Thursday 28th May at 20:00 you can experience the largest version of the Oslo Philharmonic so far in the Mellomspill series, as Arvid Engegård conducts Beethoven's Symphony No. 5.

On Friday 5th June at 20:00, Arvid Engegård will lead the orchestra again when they play Beethoven's tribute to the diversity of nature, Symphony No. 6 with the nickname "Pastoral Symphony" on World Environment Day.

The concert is part of The Beethoven Pastoral Project, where many orchestras around the world play the Pastoral Symphony to gain greater awareness of climate change.

Music by Debussy, Ravel and Berio

On Wednesday 20th May at 20:00 the concert opens with Claude Debussy's (1862−1918) symphonic poem Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun from 1894, inspired by a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé. The piece is one of Debussy's most popular works, and is considered a milestone in the history of music for its pioneering tone language.

Maurice Ravel (1875−1937) wrote Introduction and Allegro for harp, flute, clarinet and string quartet during "eight days and three sleepless nights" in the spring of 1905. The piece is rich in much of what Ravel is known for; enigmatic moods, sophisticated details and dazzling sounds.

Italian Luciano Berio (1925−2003) is today considered among the most innovative composers of the 20th century. In the song cycle Folk Songs from 1964, however, which is sung here by soprano Stina Steingrim Levvel, there is more of melodious songs than of musical experiments, and it is perhaps his most popular work.

Berio had written his own "folk songs" since boyhood, and some of the songs in Folk Songs are his own. Several of the songs have a subdued and melancholy feel, such as the Armenian song Loosin yelav, about the moon rising in the sky, or the French Rossignolet du bois, where a nightingale provides nightly love advice. But the cycle ends with an energetic and passionate Azerbaijani love song.

Music by Bach, Mozart and Grieg

On Thursday 14th May conductor Arvid Engegård led a program dominated by the biggest names of 18th century music.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685−1750) wrote a number of keyboard concertos, which were often performed on harpsichord. Today, these concerts are often played on piano, and Tor Espen Aspaas was the soloist of this concert, in Keyboard Concerto No. 5.

Eine kleine Nachtmusik from 1787 is one of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's (1756−1791) most famous works. The second Mozart work on the program, Adagio and Fugue in C minor, was written the following year.

In 1880 Edvard Grieg (1843−1907) wrote twelve songs with piano accompaniment to lyrics by Aasmund Olavsson Vinje. He then arranged two of the songs for string orchestra. The concert concludes with one of these, Last Spring.

Watch the concert in the video above.

Lise Davidsen soloist in Alban Berg's songs

On Thursday 7th May Lise Davidsen was the soloist in Seven early songs by Austrian composer Alban Berg. Berg wrote the songs in the years 1905−1908 while studying with Arnold Schönberg.

Arnold Schönberg was at this time experimenting with the twelve-tone technique he would later become famous for. Notturno for strings and harp is a warm and harmonious piece that Schönberg wrote as early as 1896.

Richard Wagner was an important source of inspiration for both Schönberg and Berg. Wagner wrote his Siegfried Idyll in 1870, the year after his son Siegfried was born. The composition was a birthday present for his wife Cosima, and for the first few years he kept the piece private.

Lise Davidsen appears courtesy of Decca Records.

Watch the concert here:

A large time span 

On Friday 8th May, conductor Eivind Aadland led a program with music written over a large time span, by composers from different parts of the world.

Organist Kåre Nordstoga contributed in a selection of canzone written by Italian composer Giovanni Gabrieli, written at the end of the 16th century. Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu wrote Signals from Heaven: Night Signal in 1987. The program also features music by American composers Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber and German-British Georg Friedrich Händel.

Complete program: Mellomspill: Concert program

Lise Davidsen soloist in Brazilian classic

On Thursday 30th April Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen opened the concert as soloist in Aria from Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 by Heitor Villa-Lobos. 

The Oslo Philharmonic's cello group was the musical foundation of this concert. You will hear music by Edvard Grieg and others arranged for cello ensemble by our solo cellist Louisa Tuck. Soloist in Johan Svendsen's Romance is Maria Angelika Carlsen, leader of the 2nd violin group in the Oslo Philharmonic.

Lise Davidsen appears courtesy of Decca Records.

Watch the concert here: