Recital Cyprien Katsaris

Piano virtuoso Cyprien Katsaris plays Debussy’s Clair de lune from the Suite bergamasque, Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte, Saint-Saëns’ The Swan (arranged by Godowsky), Brahms’ Sonata No. 3 in F minor Op. 5 and his own composition to celebrate European unity, Fantasie sur des hymnes. Each performance is introduced by Katsaris, who illustrates his insights into the music at the keyboard.

Julia Fischer – Violin and Piano

In her January 2008 concert with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie under Matthias Pintscher, Julia Fischer, named ‘Artist of the Year’ in 2007 by the U.K.’s ‘Gramophone’ magazine, did exactly as Bach and Mozart did: she appeared in public as a soloist on two completely different instruments, the violin and the piano. Fischer, who also trained as a pianist, pulled off this rare and risky feat with extraordinary prowess. In Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor op. 61, she weaves her lines seamlessly into the orchestral texture, emerging now with prominent embellishments, now with passionate cantilenas, or withdrawing to let the woodwinds express themselves as equals. For her ‘piano’ part of the evening, Julia Fischer chose the popular Grieg Concerto in A minor op. 16, a warhorse that shares with the previous work an intricate interweaving of the solo and orchestral parts. Commenting on her flawless piano technique and utterly natural artistry on this instrument, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote: ‘She mastered the work with bravura … a more than amazing double talent.’

Opera Gala Baden-Baden

Four of the greatest singers of our time combine their talents and their artistry in an evening of beloved operatic numbers – rarely has a concert deserved the title ‘Opera Summit’ as much as this one, recorded live at the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden on 3 August 2007. Heading the quartet is soprano Anna Netrebko with her inimitable blend of glamour and simplicity, her enticing appearance and seductive singing, a musical powerhouse who tops the pop charts and sells out operas houses within hours. Hardly less dazzling than her Russian colleague is Latvian mezzo Elina Garanc?a, whose crystal-clear voice and charismatic stage presence never fail to enthrall her audiences. Replacing the indisposed Rolando Villazón is his fellow Mexican tenor Ramón Vargas, who began his career in Europe after winning the first prize in the Enrico Caruso Competition in Milan. French baritone Ludovic Tézier is a frequent guest at La Scala, the Opéra Bastille and the Met.

Saint-Saens, Le rouet d’Omphale

The succinctness of the symphonic poem “Le rouet d’Omphale” (1872) by Camille Saint- Saëns (1835-1921) belies its importance: it is one of the very first French symphonic poems. The impulse for Saint-Saëns’ delightfully descriptive work perhaps came from Franz Liszt, whose symphonic poems Saint-Saëns was the first to perform in France. Leonard Bernstein conducts the Orchestre National de France in a concert recorded live at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées on 21 November 1981 featuring French works of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Saint-Saëns, Piano Concerto No.2 in G minor, op.22

At 88, Arthur Rubinstein showed no trace of losing that quality of “joie de vivre” that had so fascinated audiences for almost three quarters of a century. The true Rubinstein sound, full and sonorous at every pitch, was always one of the distinctive marks of his playing ever since he began appearing in public. Rubinstein’s performance of Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 2, accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra under André Previn, is a perfect testimony of his notion of a “singing tone”. With playing that is by turns vital and poetic, extrovert and reflective, rhapsodic and poised, this performance, filmed in April 1975 at Croydon’s Fairfield Hall, is Rubinstein at his warm-hearted, lyrical best. Incidentally, Rubinstein made his New York debut with the Saint-Saëns Concerto at Carnegie Hall on 8 January 1906.

BBC Proms 2021: The Carnival of the Animals

Camille Saint-Saëns, who died 100 years ago, is celebrated in a special family Prom which explores the sounds and rhythms of the Manchester Caribbean Carnival with Revel, a brand new music by Daniel Kidane and narration by Lemn Sissay, before delving into the world of imagination with Saint-Saëns’s muchloved suite The Carnival of the Animals. The seven talented Kanneh-Mason siblings and musical friends are joined by former Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo for The Carnival of the Animals. This musical menagerie, packed with braying donkeys, energetic kangaroos, a serene swan and an aquarium of glinting fish, gets a fresh update. PROGRAM: Kidane: Revel, Saint-Saëns: The Carnival of the Animals

Bryn Terfel – Bad Boys

Bass-baritone Bryn Terfel is a towering figure in today’s musical world – both physically and artistically. Whether in the opera house or on the recital stage, he blends his powerful, versatile voice with commanding stage presence. Since bass-baritones are usually the “bad boys” in opera, the Welsh singer has put together a program that portrays a gallery of rogues and villains, the “demonic misfits and malcontents of this wonderful music” (Bryn Terfel). The concert features Terfel in a number of demonic roles, including two Satans (one by Gounod and one by Boito), a murderous barber (Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd), a swaggering drug dealer (Gershwin’s Sporting Life) and much more. He is accompanied in this program – recorded at Cardiff’s St. David’s Hall in his native Wales – by the Sinfonia Cymru under Gareth Jones.