Rachmaninow/Hindemith

This concert will be recorded and broadcast on Friday 8 May 2026 from 19:30 as part of the series “Das Ö1 Konzert”. It will then remain available to listen to for 30 days via the ORF’s digital audio service at sound.orf.at.

Return, farewell and longing: Hans Graf, one of the closest musical companions of the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich, conducts a programme that delves deep into the stories of exile, love of homeland and musical passion.

Sergei Rachmaninov was denied a return to his homeland after he was forced to leave Russia in 1917. In exile in the USA, he worked through this longing musically in his large-scale Third Symphony. The only completed movement from his Jugendsymphonie forms a touching contrast to this. A few years after Rachmaninov's Third, Paul Hindemith's Violin Concerto was composed in 1939, a work that also tells of emigration and longing. The violinist Ziyu He, born in 1999, makes his Tonkunstler debut with this gripping work.

Ziyu He was one of the youngest soloists in the Vienna Philharmonic when he made his debut at the Musikverein under Adam Fischer at the age of just 18. He now performs as a soloist with internationally renowned orchestras. From 1984 to 1994, Hans Graf was chief conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg. Today, numerous top orchestras are among the conductor's musical partners.

PROGRAMME

*Sergei Rachmaninov: Jugendsymphonie in D minor
*Paul Hindemith: Concerto for violin and orchestra
*Sergei Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 3 in A minor op. 44

ORCHESTRA

Ziyu He violin, Hans Graf conductor, Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich