For his debut as this summer’s “artiste étoile,” Augustin Hadelich brings along a work from his adopted American homeland that he especially loves: the irresistibly beautiful Violin Concerto by Samuel Barber. He finds Barber’s musical language “highly emotional” and notes that the intensely expressive slow movement can send chills up and down your spine. But the virtuoso in Hadelich is challenged here too — above all in the finale: “It’s like a perpetual-motion machine — you have to let go and still keep everything under control.” Perhaps that’s the secret as well behind The Firebird, Igor Stravinsky’s spectacular first complete ballet, in which the Lucerne Festival Orchestra can draw on every facet of its artistry: with rich sonorities, electrifying rhythms, archaic Russian colors, and sweeping surges of intensity. The Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä — by now an audience favorite in Lucerne and far beyond — will once again show why he is so sought after by the world’s leading orchestras. Many musicians readily admit that playing with him is tremendous fun — and the results thrill with extraordinary intensity.
