In order to continue their incredibly successful piano duos series, Daniel Barenboim and Martha Argerich return to the stage of beautiful Teatro Colón at their hometown Buenos Aires, putting the “city in a state of emergency” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) with a fulminant concert evening. Argerich and Barenboim perform Johannes Brahms’ Variations On A Theme by Haydn, Arnold Schönberg’s Five pieces for Orchestra in Anton Webern’s arrangement for two pianos and Franz Liszt’s Concerto Pathétique. “An unforgettable concert […] Words were not needed. Barenboim and Argerich met again doing what they can do best and what they do in the best way it can possibly be done in this world” (La Nación).
West-Eastern Divan Orchestra at Teatro Colón – A Tango Evening
On the occasion of the “Festival de Música y Reflexión” at the Teatro Colón, Daniel Barenboim and his West Eastern Divan Orchestra celebrate the centennials of two extraordinary Argentinian musicians in 2016: Alberto Ginastera, eminent creator of modern classical music interfused with folkloristic elements, and Horacio Salgán, whose voice was distinctive in the development of Argentine tango during the 20th century. Barenboim and the WEDO present with “solidity and agility” Ginastera’s Violin Concerto as well as three tango compositions by Salgán. “It was the most particular concert of those Daniel Barenboim and the WEDO had programmed” (La Nación).
Martha Argerich & Daniel Barenboim – Piano Duos at the Teatro Colon
The return to their native city of Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim – two childhood friends from Buenos Aires, born just a year apart, who both grew up to become global superstars – proved an unforgettable evening of pianistic magic. “Coexistence”, as symbolisation of the festival motto, was in terms not just of two musical parts coming together in the hands of two very different yet equally distinctive artistic personalities – “the mercurial Martha and Daniel the master-architect” (Buenos Aires Herald) PROGRAM Schumann: Six Studies in the Form of Canons for Pedal Piano; Debussy: En blanc et noire; Bartok: Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion
Piano Duos at the Teatro Colón – Martha Argerich & Daniel Barenboim
“Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim wow their hometown of Buenos Aires” proclaimed the FAZ newspaper. This is the first time the two musicians have performed together in the city of their birth. So this concert, which formed part of the Festival de Música y Reflexión was a sort of “home game” for them, and one for which Argentinians had waited long. “The opera house has not been so packed for a long time as for the concerts featuring these two great artists.” (FAZ) “The Colón seemed to burst at the seams”. (Buenos Aires Herald) Martha Argerich delights the audience as “the untamed lioness of the keyboard” no less than Daniel Barenboim, who radiates “an unusually exuberant sparkling sound” (FAZ). Works by Mozart, Schubert and Stravinsky were followed by frenetic demands from the audience for encores and so, accompanied by three musicians from the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Argerich and Barenboim gave Schumann’s Variations for two pianos, Rachmaninoff’s Suite No. 2 and pieces by Guastavino and Milhaud. The Buenos Aires Herald summed up: a “grand tour de force”.
Teatro Colón – West-Eastern Divan Orchestra Opening Concert
“A city in a state of emergency” was the euphoric title of the article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung describing the performance of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Buenos Aires. Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra make a guest appearance every year during their Summer Residency in several evening concerts at the Teatro Colón. With the greatest of ease, they represent one of the highlights of the Festival de Música y Reflexión: the musicians enthralled their audience with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 – the piece Martha Argerich played at her debut at the Teatro Colón at the age of eight and with which she returned to the Teatro after a prolonged abstinence – plus two premieres of works by Roustom and Adler and Ravel’s evergreens. In the Ravel in particular, the Divan musicians were able to prove “their filigree tone, their mastery of pianissimo through to the barely audible and many other merits”. (FAZ)
Sir András Schiff in Weimar
In the classical city of Weimar, where his great compatriot Franz Liszt once worked, Sir András Schiff, who was knighted in 2014, devoted himself to three of his “great loves”: Bach, Beethoven and Schubert. The setting could not have been more fitting: For the first time, it was possible for a production to record a piano recital at the Anna Amalia Library in Weimar. PROGRAM Bach: Capriccio on the departure of a beloved brother in B flat major, BWV 992; Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28 “Pastoral”; Schubert: Three Late Piano Pieces , D. 946, Hungarian Melody in B minor, D. 817
Mehta conducts Mahler and Strauss
Helmuth Rilling: The Weimar Bach Cantata Academy – Lecture and Concert II
For this edition of the Weimar Bach Cantata Academy, which forms part of the Thuringia Bach Festival, the great Bach interpreter and promoter, Helmuth Rilling, invited young musicians from across the world to come to Germany to study and perform Bach’s cantatas in their authentic location in Weimar. 63 musicians from 18 countries were chosen from countless applicants who evolved in the shortest time into an excellent choir and orchestra with immense enthusiasm and great musical talent. This documentation by director Tilo Krause shows impressions of the Academy as well as of concerts in the historic Bach places in Muehlhausen, Arnstadt and Eisenach. With the Bach Cantata Academy Ensemble and selected soloists Helmuth Rilling performs and explains two cantatas in lecture concerts – an intensive course on the cantatas with one of the leading specialists of our time. PROGRAM Bach: Cantata “Christ lag in Todesbanden”, BWV 4
Helmuth Rilling: The Weimar Bach Cantata Academy – Lecture and Concert I
For this edition of the Weimar Bach Cantata Academy, which forms part of the Thuringia Bach Festival, the great Bach interpreter and promoter, Helmuth Rilling, invited young musicians from across the world to come to Germany to study and perform Bach’s cantatas in their authentic location in Weimar. 63 musicians from 18 countries were chosen from countless applicants who evolved in the shortest time into an excellent choir and orchestra with immense enthusiasm and great musical talent. This documentation by director Tilo Krause shows impressions of the Academy as well as of concerts in the historic Bach places in Muehlhausen, Arnstadt and Eisenach. With the Bach Cantata Academy Ensemble and selected soloists Helmuth Rilling performs and explains two cantatas in lecture concerts – an intensive course on the cantatas with one of the leading specialists of our time. PROGRAM Bach: Cantata “Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir”, BWV 131
Gardiner conducts Haydn, Mendelssohn and Bruckner
Sir John Eliot Gardiner is most famous for his interpretations of Baroque music on period instruments, but his repertoire and discography are not limited to early music. In this production he is conducting the BR Symphony Orchestra with a program including Joseph Haydn’s: “Insanae et vanae curae”, Mendelsohn-Bartholdy’s Symphony No. 5 in D major/D minor (“Reformation) and Anton Bruckner’s Mass No. 1 in D minor.