Sofia Gubaidulina's ‘Fairytale Poem’ from 1971, with which the Konzerthausorchester and Joana Mallwitz begin their concert, is, according to the composer, about a little piece of chalk with big dreams of marvellous things that it wants to draw. Unfortunately, it is only used as blackboard chalk at school and is eventually thrown away. A boy finds it and begins to draw castles, gardens and sunsets on the street. The chalk is too happy to realize that it is finally disintegrating.

Shostakovich's first cello concerto from 1959 shows how the composer was finally able to utilise a wealth of long frowned upon modernist techniques after the death of Stalin. The cellist of the century and dedicatee Mstislav ‘Slava’ Rostropovich became the great midwife. With us, artist in residence Sheku Kanneh-Mason takes on the solo part.

Tchaikovsky dedicated the Fourth Symphony, premiered in 1878, to his confidante and patron Nadezhda von Meck. They never met, but exchanged 1200 letters. He wrote to her about the last movement of the Fourth: ‘If you don't have enough reason to find happiness in yourself, mingle with people, see what a good time they are having, how they abandon themselves completely to joyful feelings!’ One can only add to that: Welcome to the Konzerthaus, mingle with our audience!