General music director Patrick Hahn describes the programme of the 6th Symphony Concert as a “concert for the soul”. That is because the works of both composers filled their works not just brim with enchantingly beautiful melodies but also, and above all, with plenty of passion. In the case of Antonín Dvořák, who composed his cello concerto while staying in America for several years, the inspiration behind his intoxicatingly beautiful ideas come courtesy of a hefty dose of homesickness and his grief at the death of his childhood sweetheart. The cellist Alban Gerhardt, who has already been fêted in Wuppertal on many previous occasions, combines great dramatic tension, a sumptuous cello voice and delicate lyricism in this virtuoso work. Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky composed an equally personal work with his “Pathétique”, which tells of mortality and transience – a piece he completed shortly before his own mysterious death. Speaking about what is to this day one of his most popular works, Tchaikovsky himself said: “It is no exaggeration to say that I poured my whole soul into this symphony [...]. I believe it to the best, but also the most sincere of all my works.”