New York Times, Playbill Arts preview NJSO concerts

Conductor Susanna Mälkki makes her New Jersey Symphony Orchestra debut for concerts in Newark, New Brunswick and Morristown April 5–7. The New York Times writes:

The brilliant Finnish conductor Susanna Malkki has chosen an enticing program for her appearances this weekend with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, presented in three locations. She opens and closes the program with Strauss tone poems: “Don Juan” and “Death and Transfiguration.” Between these works she juxtaposes Debussy’s seldom-heard Fantasie for Piano and Orchestra (with the pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet) with Messiaen’s “Offrandes Oubliées” (“Forgotten Offerings”).

PlaybillArts conducted a Q&A with the in-demand conductor in advance of her engagement with the NJSO:

[PlaybillArts]: For your debut with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, you will be conducting Strauss’ Don Juan and Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration.) What are your major impressions of these pieces? How do the two pieces differ from each other?

[Mälkki]: I think that the titles themselves are quite a precise and quick indicator of the spirit of each work: it's obvious that the stories they are telling are very different from one another! Don Juan is the ultimate virtuoso piece, whereas Tod un Verklärung is a dramatic, and in my opinion, a very beautiful and profound piece of music. I find it extraordinary that Strauss wrote something like that at such a young age. We could of course reflect on both pieces confronting life on earth not being eternal (which, of course, is something that even Don Juan faces in the end), but that would be a much too big a subject here! In any case, the orchestral writing of Strauss is amazing.

Read the full Q&A at playbillarts.com.