Mozart did not write many works in minor tonalities, but those that he did were particularly impactful. They are also the ones that French pianist Hélène Grimaud most enjoys spending time with because they “provide a glimpse behind the mask of jollity that surrounds many of his famous works.” Selecting pieces that are all in minor keys yet composed during intensely creative periods in both Mozart’s and Schumann’s careers, Grimaud takes an insightful look at the composers and their popularity at the time. Grimaud’s performance in the beautiful hall of Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie is a symbolic representation of an encounter with fate, where drama and tragedy meet, and an apt reminder that not all is as it seems. PROGRAM Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20, K. 466; Symphony No. 40, K. 550; Schumann: Piano Concerto, Op. 54; Silvestrov: The Messenger (For Piano solo)
MozartOpera – Great Unknown and Knowns at Drottningholm court theatre
Enter the magic World of Mozart on the orginal stage of Drottningholm, anno 1766, famous from Ingmar Bergmans production of ”Die Zauberflöte” and announced a World Heritage by UNESCO. Long lost musical treasures are unvailed and performed here again in this unique recording. So enjoy Mozart’s unknowns for the very first time and experience the remarkable parallells to his most loved creations. Welcome to explore the magic in Mozart’s Music and time!
Lucerne Festival 2021: Chailly conducts Mozart & Schubert
to the podium of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. Together, they opened the festival with two great masters of the Classic Romantic era: Mozart and Schubert. The overture to Don Giovanni was followed by a mesmerizing rendition of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 – one of only two he wrote in a minor key. In contrast, Schubert’s Symphony No. 6 focuses on the sunny side of life: C Major, Viennese nonchalance, pleasure put to sound with playful ideas that orchestra and conductor expertly demonstrated.
RCO: Järvi conducts Mozart & Schumann
Víkingur Ólafsson is making his debut with the Concertgebouworkest. Over the past few years, he has attracted attention with his interpretation of music by Bach, Glass and contemporary music. That’s why it’s certainly be interesting to hear his interpretation of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24, a work of unrivalled beauty anticipating the romantic era with its dramatic opening and its dark undercurrents. Paavo Järvi has made several impressive guest appearances with the Concertgebouworkest. He now shines his light on Schumann’s Third Symphony (‘Rhenish’), the culmination of Schumann’s efforts to prove himself as an orchestral composer. Inspired by the beautiful landscape of the Rhineland, he wanted this symphony to sound like folk music. But the work also sometimes has a solemn, spiritual intensity, the result of the deep impression that the then newly built Cologne Cathedral made on him. PROGRAM Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 24; Schumann: Symphony No.3
Blomstedt conducts Voríšek & Mozart
With this concert, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Herbert Blomstedt embarked on a musical journey to the Czech Republic in memory of the orchestra’s former conductor Václav Neumann. It was there that Jan Václav Voríšek was born in 1791, the manuscript of his D Major Symphony sharing the fate of the symphonies of his friend Franz Schubert in neither being published nor performed during his lifetime. Prague was also the place of a short, late, and rare happy chapter in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s moving biography and his D major Symphony K. 504 was premiered there. PROGRAM Voríšek: Symphony D major, op. 23; Mozart: Symphony D major, K 504 “Prague”
RCO: Dudamel conducts Mozart & Mahler
After an absence of more than seven years, Gustavo Dudamel returns to the Concertgebouworkest. And how! For the first time, he will be leading the Amsterdam-based orchestra with its illustrious Mahler tradition in a symphony by Gustav Mahler. Relative to the rest of Mahler’s œuvre, the Symphony No. 4 is comparatively short, airy in tone and lightly scored, yet it is no less ambitious in its conception – the final movement, entitled Das himmlische Leben, is a childlike vision of heaven. It is sung in this performance by the Swedish soprano Camilla Tilling. PROGRAM Mozart: Overture “Die Zauberflöte”; Mahler: Symphony No. 4
Kit Armstrong plays Wagner and Liszt
Bayreuth is not only the city of Richard Wagner, but also of his father-in-law Franz Liszt. Described by the New York Times as a “brilliant pianist” who combines “musical maturity and youthful daring in his exceptional playing”, Kit Armstrong performed at the famous Margravial Opera House Bayreuth, a masterpiece of Baroque theatre architecture, works by Wagner, Liszt and Mozart in a concert that was “technically sophisticated – and poetically poignant”. (Der Opernfreund) Alfred Brendel, who has guided Armstrong as teacher and mentor since 2005, ascribes to him “an understanding of the great piano works that combines freshness and subtlety, emotion and intellect”. PRPGRAM: Works by Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner and W.A. Mozart
Karajan in Japan
Join the maestro Herbert von Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker for this eclectic and striking program featuring three masterpieces of the orchestral repertoire! The concert begins with Mozart’s Divertimento No. 17 in B-flat Major. Composed in 1777, the work incarnates Classicist ideals of with its apparent simplicity disguising great sophistication. Richard Strauss’s symphonic poem Don Juan follows: premiered in 1888, the work narrates the story of the famed libertine with a highly virtuosic score. The concert draws to a close with Ottorio Respighi’s Pines of Rome (1924), for which Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker prove to be the ideal interpreters of its complex and brilliant orchestration.
Coronation Mass & Ave Verum Corpus
Saturday, June 29, 1985: Herbert von Karajan and the Wiener Philharmoniker perform Mozart’s Coronation Mass with four of the greatest singers of the decade as part of a mass celebrated by Pope Jean Paul II at the St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Ten thousand cardinals, bishops, diplomats from the world over, Italian political figures, and important personalities from the cultural scene are present. Two years earlier in during the pope’s visit to Austria, it was Karajan himself who suggested performing Mozart’s work in a religious service to the great religious leader.
Berlin 750 Jahre – Opening Concert
Herbert von Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker perform Mozart’s captivating Divertimento in D Major—one of many highlights of the 35-year relationship between the conductor and the orchestra! In 1987 as part of the 750th anniversary of Berlin’s founding, this concert kicked off a series of celebrations in the German capital, a festive moment whose preparations in West and East Berlin were a subtle prelude to the events of 1989. With a length and instrumentation reminiscent of the composer’s symphonic works, the Divertimento’s structuring in an extended series of six movements and one-on-a-part texture are typical of the chamber music of the period. A masterpiece composed by the classical genius at the tender age of 16!