Many composers dedicate their works to important people or quite often to the musicians premiering them. In his Violin Concerto No° 4, Alfred Schnittke not only prefaced the piece with the dedication to the premiering soloist Gidon Kremer. He also put this dedication into music and placed it at the very beginning of the concerto, known as the “Kremer theme”. Kremer, who turns 75 in February 2022, performed this concerto for the first time at the Leipzig Gewandhaus under the baton of fellow Latvian Andris Nelsons. Nelsons and the Gewandhausorchester also performed Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1, Winter Dreams. PROGRAM: Weinberg: Jüdische Rhapsodie; Schnittke: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 4; Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 1
Hélène Grimaud plays Mozart and Schumann at Elbphilharmonie Hamburg
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)
RCO: Made in America
Don’t miss the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in an all-American extravaganza from their illustrious home venue in Amsterdam! Susanna Mälkki leads a program entitled “Made in America,” exploring American identity across three rare, well-chosen works. Opening the evening is A Short Piece for Orchestra by 20th-century African-American composer Julia Perry, a neoclassical work of complex and frenetic rhythms tempered by profound lyricism. Next up is the formidable Violin Concerto by John Adams, a revolutionary piece for the instrument whose exceptional melodic richness complements a marvelously original rhythmic frame. Ferociously difficult and rarely played, it is interpreted with brio and assurance by virtuoso violinist Leila Josefowicz. Finally, the concert closes with Charles Ives’s Symphony No. 2, an evocative blend of European influences and New England folklore. PROGRAM Perry: A Short Piece for Orchestra; Adams: Violin Concerto; Ives: Symphony No. 2
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.
Tanglewood Festival 2021 – A.S. Mutter & John Williams
C Major is delighted to present the world premiere performance of John Williams’ Violin Concerto No.2 from the Tanglewood Festival. Williams himself conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the soloist is the work’s dedicatee, Anne-Sophie Mutter. The legendary composer and superstar violinist are old friends and have enjoyed worldwide success together in recent years. Providing an explosive opening to the concert is American composer-violinist Jessie Montgomery’s Starburst (2012) for string orchestra, full of fiery colours and energy and conducted by the BSO’s Music Director Andris Nelsons. He returns to the stage after the Violin Concerto for Copland’s Quiet City, a score that began life as incidental music for a play of the same name, but found fame as a standalone concert piece. With haunting solo parts for trumpet and English horn, this reflective work paints an atmospheric portrait of a city by night. The programme ends with the suite Stravinsky put together in 1919 from his ballet The Firebird, triumphantly premiered in Paris in 1910. PROGRAM Williams: Violin Concerto No. 2 & Across the Stars; Montgomery: Starburst; Copland: Quiet City; Stravinsky: Suite from The Firebird
RCO Opening Night 2021: Daniel Harding & Leonidas Kavakos
The Royal Concertgebouworkest is celebrating the new season with a grand gift to the city, the country and the world. On Friday 10 September, the Concertgebouworkest opens the 2021/2022 season with a festive concert open-air in the heart of Amsterdam – that evening, music sounds through the streets from Dam Square. In this way, the musicians and the public bring the city back to life, ringing in the new season with you in this spectacular way! Daniel Harding is not only a conductor but also a pilot for Air France. Tonight, he leads us on a musical journey through Europe, ending in Paris. PROGRAM Roukens: CHASE; Strauss: DON JUAN; Paganini: LA CAMPANELLA; Verdi: LA FORZA DEL DESTINO; Boulanger: D´UN MATIN DE PRINTEMPS; Ravel: TZIGAN; Gershwin: AN AMERICAN IN PARIS + encores
San Francisco Symphony – Season Opening Gala 2021
Feel the energy as the great San Francisco Symphony welcomes its new music director Esa-Pekka Salonen with its 110th season Reopening Night, filled with jazz and dance from special guests. To kick of the evening, Slonimsky’s Earbox is a virtuosic piece composed in 1995 by Bay Area composer John Adams, full of cascading phrases of minimalist patterns being played with remarkable precision and energy by the orchestra. Alonzo King’s choreography for the four movements of Alberto Ginastera’s Ballet Suite Estancia is a joyride. The dancers of the Alonzo King LINES Ballet excel themselves at athletic jumps and limber, airy movements within the explosive last dance of the suite, the ‘Malambo’. Gaia, a 27-minute opus by the jazz legend Wayne Shorter forms the centerpiece of the evening and features the extraordinary bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding. The evening evolves into a true night of enchantment with ‘Noche de incantamiento’ by Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas who wrote a percussion extravaganza with his music to the film La noche de los Mayas in 1939.
John Williams – The Berlin Concert
The history of film music would be different without him: John Williams. Cinema classics like Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Harry Potter are inextricably linked with his soundtracks. They have unforgettable, radiant themes, an impressive range of atmospheres and sounds and, at the same time, the always unmistakable style of the composer. John Williams makes his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker at these concerts. The programme includes several of his most famous scores – and of film music in general. Film music from Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, E.T., Jurassic Park, Far and Away and Star Wars.
Lucerne Festival 2020: Blomstedt conducts Beethoven
In 1949, at only seven years old, Martha Argerich made her debut with Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto and the piece has accompanied her throughout her career. Naturally, Argerich has discovered new facets of this work over the decades. And she surely did so when she performed this signature piece with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and Herbert Blomstedt who gave his debut with the orchestra thanks to a very special festival edition in August 2020. Beethoven’s music plays a very important role in Blomstedt’s career and thus the concert featured another work of the composer: his Symphony No. 2. PROGRAM Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1, Symphony No. 2
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