At the age of 26, award-winning German conductor Aurel Dawidiuk has already made quite a name for himself in his profession – for the past two years, he has been the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam’s principal guest conductor.

Now, he is conducting the KHO for first time and opens the programme with Brahms’ playful Haydn-Variations. That Joseph Haydn‘s famous virtuoso C major concerto, a core piece of the cello repertoire, was only found in Prague in 1961 - after it had been thought to be lost since Haydn's lifetime - is hard to imagine today. Our soloist is the young Russia-born cellist Anastasia Kobekina, who has been living in Germany since 2012.

Last comes Robert Schumann’s Fourth Symphony, the first version of which was completed in 1841 after three months of work, in time for his wife Clara’s birthday in September. She described the first spring-like days of work at the Schumann household in her marriage diary: “I [...] sometimes hear the D minor resounding wildly from afar, so that I know in advance that this, too, is a work created from the depths of the soul.” The audience was initially less enthusiastic. Beginning in 1851 - two published symphonies later - he then extensively revised his only minor-key symphony. Clara clearly preferred the result, but Brahms loved the first version much more.