Czech maestro Jakub Hrůša's celebrated tenure with the Bamberg Symphony, of which he has served as Chief Conductor since 2016, continues in a cannily designed program full of grand Romantic emotion. With two of Wagner's most sublimely beautiful operatic introductions as bookends (the ethereal strings of the Prelude to Lohengrin, and the soul-warming winds of the Tannhaüser Overture), the world-class orchestra performs Brahms's Third Symphony, which begins with a musical quotation of his motto frei aber froh ("free but happy") and alludes both to Tannhaüser and to the Third Symphony by Robert Schumann—whose strikingly unique, profoundly passionate Piano Concerto is performed here by Hrůša's compatriot Lukáš Vondráček, the winner of the 2016 Queen Elisabeth Competition who has been praised for his "astonishing delicacy" (The Washington Post).

Photo © Andreas Herzau