There’s always a unique atmosphere at the BBC Proms: the summer music festival at which the world’s greatest artists perform before an audience of 5,000 in London’s colossal Royal Albert Hall. Some might say that it was Hélène Grimaud’s misfortune to make her debut there on the tragic date of 11 September 2001, but that only makes her achievement the more powerful – a fiercely intelligent, often dazzling performance of Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto. Eschenbach’s account of Symphonie Fantastique with this great French orchestra has the same life-affirming energy: delivered to a rapt crowd in an atmosphere of unmistakably heightened emotion
Rachmaninoff – The Piano Concertos Nos. 3 & 4
Performing all four piano concertos by Sergei Rachmaninoff in just two days – a challenge for the Orchestre de Paris on the Rachmaninoff Weekend at the Philharmonie de Paris. Together with three different pianists young conductor Stanislav Kochanovsky who is considered one of the most outstanding talents in his homeland Russia, performs the concert. For the first concert of the cycle, Russian Rachmaninoff specialist Denis Matsuev takes on the titanic Concerto No. 3 with all his distinctive enthusiasm, before exploring the more modern outline of the less-known Concerto No. 4. A performance which was hailed by the French press as superlative.
Rachmaninoff – The Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2
Performing all four piano concertos by Sergei Rachmaninoff in just two days – a challenge for the Orchestre de Paris on the Rachmaninoff Weekend at the Philharmonie de Paris. Together with three different pianists young conductor Stanislav Kochanovsky who is considered one of the most outstanding talents in his homeland Russia, performs the concert. In the second concert Nikolai Lugansky opens with the Piano Concerto No. 1, a work started when the composer was a student at the Moscow Conservatoire. The highlight of the evening is the Piano Concerto No. 2, the most popular of Rachmaninoff‘s four piano concertos, performed by the young Uzbek pianist Behzod Abduraimov “who gave a superb account, ardent but never stretching the musical line too far” (Bachtrack).
Paavo Järvi conducts Escaich, Widmann & Saint-Saens
The spectacular new Rieger organ of the Philharmonie de Paris is inaugurated with solo, ensemble, and symphonic works starring Paavo Järvi at the rostrum of the Orchestre de Paris and Thierry Escaich, Titular Organist and with that successor of Maurice Duruflé at Paris Saint-Étienne-du-Mont. The new organ with close to 7000 handmade pipes, 15 meters high and 20 meters wide, with 91 stops on four manuals and pedal specially designed for the symphonic repertory, is heard for the first time at this festive performance. PROGRAM Escaich: Organ Improvisation; Widmann: Viola Concerto (World Premiere); Saint-Saens: Symphony No. 3 “Organ Symphony”
Hengelbrock conducts Bach and Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Thomas Hengelbrock and the Orchestre de Paris teamed up to perform one of the most brilliant works of European church music: J.S. Bach’s Magnificat. This opus is a musical setting of the biblical canticle Magnificat, which is one of the most ancient Christian hymns and perhaps the earliest Marian hymn, frequently sung liturgically in Christian church services. Following this, the musicians draw the attention of the audience to the content and structural parallels between Bach and Felix Mendelssohn, who has rendered outstanding services to the revivification of the interest in music of J.S. Bach. The musicians delight the audience with the Psalm 42 and the Christmas Cantata, two compositions full of religious fervor.
Paris: Harding conducts Berg and Mahler
It was the death of 18-year-old Manon Gropius, the daughter of Alma Mahler and Walter Gropius, which spurred Alban Berg to compose his violin concerto Dem Andenken eines Engels (To the Memory of an Angel). This concerto is played by multiple awarded German violinist Isabell Faust, who has been praised by New York Times: “Her sound has passion, grit and electricity but also a disarming warmth and sweetness that can unveil the music’s hidden strains of lyricism.” The violin concerto is followed by György Kurtág’s Doloroso. As third part of the programme, the Orchestre de Paris performs Mahler’s 4th Symphony, built around the song “Das himmlische Leben” (The Heavenly Life) from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, presenting a child’s vision of Heaven. The soprano solo is sung by Christina Landshamer.
Paris: Hommage à Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez, a seminal figure in the field of contemporary classical music, died on January 5th 2016. His name is closely connected to the Orchestre de Paris, which he has conducted more than a hundred times, and to the Philharmonie de Paris, whose “Grande Salle Pierre Boulez” was brought into existence due to his continuous endeavor.Two weeks after Boulez’ death, supported by young musicians from the Conservatoire de Paris, the Orchestra de Paris joined forces with the Ensemble Intercontemporain and the IRCAM – both founded by Pierre Boulez – in order to pay him tribute. The programme of this very special evening features a varied selection of the composer’s works. As a result of the concert night, “one simple word comes up, full of enthusiasm and emotion: merci…” (Bachtrack). PROGRAM: Pierre Boulez: Dialogue de l’ombre double extraits; Improvisation I; Messagesquisse; Dérive 1 pour six instruments; Improvisation II; Notations pour orchestre I, IV, III, II, VII
Paavo Järvi and Rudolf Buchbinder: Dvorák, Beethoven
Before the New World Symphony and the Requiem there were the Symphonic Variations and Dvorák’s Symphony No. 8. The Symphonic Variations are as original as they are rarely performed, and blend seamlessly into this symphony. Composed a full decade before the symphony, Dvorák’s variations last no more than two minutes each. The symphony itself is full of surprises and gives a rarely seen glimpse into the mind and work of this agile and energetic composer. Beethoven’s Concerto No. 3 rounds out the evening at the Orchestre de Paris with a performance by Rudolf Buchbinder, one of Paavo Järvi’s close collaborators and one of piano’s rare talents. —– Program: Antonín DVORÁK, Symphonic Variations, Op. 78; Ludwig van BEETHOVEN, Piano Concerto No. 3, in C minor, Op. 37; Antonín DVORÁK, Symphony No. 8 in G major, Op. 88
Salonen conducts Bartók
Live from the awe-inspiring new Philharmonie de Paris, the French capital’s elite orchestra performs a programme devoted to the endlessly fascinating music of Béla Bartók. On the podium is Esa-Pekka Salonen, one of the composer’s truly authoritative interpreters. This concert was hailed as “revelatory” by the leading French journal Diapason, “a unique expressive and sensory voyage (…) with precise phrasing and incredible flexibility (…) an irresistible feeling for timbre, tightropewalking accents, acoustic spaces, instrumental breathing (…) rhythmic agility, range of sensitive colours, humour and irony, brilliance, luminosity, moments of astonishing sweetness. The Orchestre de Paris soared and surpassed itself. Salonen is clearly a unique artist.” PROGRAM Bartok: Dance Suite; Concerto for two Pianos, Percussion and Orchestra; Concerto for Orchestra
Salonen conducts Mahler No. 2
Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony is undoubtedly the most popular of all his symphonies. The composer stages a gradual victory over his doubts and asserts his creative vocation and his newfound faith in the cosmos. The audience is immediately struck by the opening chaos orchestrating a magniicent funeral. The sublime final chorus enraptures listeners as it celebrates the Last Judgement and the divine love that is spread everywhere. Resurrection takes up in a spectacular way the question of a hypothetical renewal: the Stadium de Vitrolles near Aix has been preserved in a state of beauty ravaged by twenty-five years of abandonment and clandestine occupations. Inside this iconic building Romeo Castellucci tackles the enigma of a mysterious rebirth. “It became big, very big, beyond huge, beyond gigantic.” (Opera Today)