Paavo Järvi © Prague Spring Festival, Zdenek Chrapek

Paavo Järvi

Paavo Järvi, eldest son of Neeme Järvi and older brother of Kristjan Järvi, comes from a cosmopolitan Estonian and American background. He has already held a number of important conducting posts and has a few more in the offing, including that of chief conductor of the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich from 2019/20. But his name will perhaps always be most closely associated with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, as artistic director of which he worked true miracles, notably in Beethoven. Like Sir Simon Rattle, Järvi originally trained as a percussionist . And his characteristic traits include his grasp of rhythm, as well as his predilection for swift tempi. So it will be interesting to see how his wit and panache not only bring a smile to Haydn’s face, but also polish and shine the huge quartz-like blocks of sound of Bruckner’s Seventh or draw the pathos from Tchaikovsky’s Fifth!