Beethoven 6 & Adès

The LA Phil and conductor Gustavo Dudamel contrast Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ symphony with Thomas Adès’s Dante.The LA Phil returns to the Festival with their superstar conductor Gustavo Dudamel after their 2019 Festival performance triumphantly filled out Tynecastle Stadium.

Both a classical and pop-culture phenomenon, Dudamel was the first classical artist to perform in the Super Bowl half-time show.

With the orchestra itself being described as ‘the most important orchestra in America’ by the New York Times, together with Dudamel they make an unstoppable, Grammy Award-winning partnership.‘No man on earth can love the country as I do’, declared Ludwig van Beethoven.

And he put his love into music in his joyous ‘Pastoral’ Symphony.

His celebration of nature features evocations of birdsong, a babbling brook and a timpani thunderstorm, and closes with a radiant hymn of thanksgiving.Thomas Adès’s Inferno is very different: an alternately terrifying and comic journey through Hell, as envisaged by the great Renaissance poet Dante in The Divine Comedy.

Adès’s musical sound-painting is equally vibrant, from the fiery first movement which won the LA Phil a Grammy, to the slapstick dance depicting thieves devoured by reptiles.This is Dudamel’s 17th year as the LA Phil’s Music and Artistic Director - don’t miss the chance to experience their legendary partnership live.Supported by Dunard Fund