Since going on sale in November 2012, tickets for classical pianist Lang Lang’s solo recital at the Royal Albert Hall on November 15th 2013 sold out within 48 hours, a record for a recital by any classical musician at the venue in recent times. We’re delighted to be able to preserve his performance for the screen, so his many worldwide fans have a chance to experience the programme: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 5 in G major, KV 283 – Piano Sonata No. 4 in E flat major, KV 282 – Piano Sonata No. 8 in A minor, KV 310 – Frédéric Chopin: Ballade No. 1 Op 23 in G minor – Ballade No. 2 Op 38 in F Major – Ballade No. 3 Op 47 in A flat – Ballade No. 4 Op 52 in F minor.The word’s first 4K classical music production. (Length of the 4K version: 115′ min.)
Chailly conducts Mahler – Symphony No. 7
Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig performing Gustav Mahler’s Seventh Symphony.
Mariss Jansons conducts Bruckner 9
As part of a fully fledged Bruckner festival, Mariss Jansons is conducting a series of Bruckner symphonies, each paired with a classical solo concerto – great music by great composers. The series gets under way with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1, composed in 1795. The work is, in actual fact, Beethoven’s second contribution to the genre, in which he pushes the boundaries of the instrument. The featured soloist is Lars Vogt. One hundred years after Beethoven had written his Piano Concerto, Bruckner concluded his monumental symphonic œuvre with the unfinished Ninth Symphony, leaving behind three completed movements and sketches for a finale in 1896, the year in which he died. In his swansong – the starkly dissonant Adagio –, Bruckner explores the very boundaries of tonality. —— Program: Ludwig van Beethoven – Piano Concerto No. 1, Anton Bruckner – Symphony No. 9.
Barbara Hannigan – A Late Night Concert
There are pianists who also conduct, and concertmasters who lead their orchestra from the violin chair. But a star soprano who coordinates a large instrumental ensemble while at the same time negotiating the trickiest coloratura singing is something entirely new. That is, until Barbara Hannigan came along to reveal this remarkable skill. “It’s like walking on virgin snow,” says the Canadian “artiste étoile” who teamed up at Lucerne Festival in Summer with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Next to conducting works by Fauré, Mozart and Rossini she performed onstage, decked out in a daring S&M-style leather bodice, Ligeti’s “Mysteries of the Macabre.”
Beethoven: Violin Concerto – Znajder, Chailly
Muscular yet elegant, eloquent and charismatic – terms that flow from journalists’ pens when referring to Nikolaj Znaider. The Danish artist once again affirmed his reputation as one of the most distinguished violinists of our time with his performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s violin concerto with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under the baton of its musical director Riccardo Chailly. Znaider himself speaks of Beethoven’s popular work as “the bible in a violinist’s concert repertoire.”
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2
“Gerstein’s blistering technique is matched only by his deeply soulful connection to standard repertoire,” the Time out New York says about the Russian pianist. With the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under the baton of Semyon Bychkov, Kirill Gerstein testified to these qualities: He put emphasis on expression and effect in Sergei Rachmaninov‘s Second Piano Concerto. Thus, the concerto gained a new life in music, whose impact can sometimes be blunted by its own popularity: Finely balancing constructive rigor and thoughtfulness this performance becomes a fresh, fruitful artistic joint venture.
Classical Music for Everyone? A documentary about the popularization of classical music
Although the aesthetics of staging and broadcasting classical music haven’t changed much within the past 30 years, a parallel universe driven by a new event culture, marketing strategies and stardom has developed. With the first CD in 1982 as the starting point of the “popularization of classical music” the phenomenon found ist peak in the 1990s with the overwhelming success of the “Three Tenors.” Günter Atteln’s documentary “Classical Music for Everyone?” offers a close look at the origin and development of classical music presentation. Interviews with insiders in the field provide a unique insight and outlook on the future of this genre.
Le nozze di Figaro (from NCPA Beijing)
“Le nozze di Figaro” shines a new light on Mozart’s famous opera in Beijing: The NCPA production combines traditional Western elements with an outstanding Chinese cast. Stage director José Luis Castro from Seville – where the story takes place – embeds the performance in the traditional setting of his hometown. With their fresh interpretation the NCPA Orchestra and Chorus, under musical director Lu Jia, lay the foundation for the leading soloists in the Middle Kingdom: Li Ao, Huang Ying, Zhou Zhengzhong, Yu Guanqun and Xu Lei testify that the NCPA has become a venue of choice for opera lovers in China and beyond.
The Return is the Movement of Tao: Zhu Xiao-Mei and the Goldberg Variations
“The Return is the Movement of Tao” pays tribute to one of the most renowned interpreters of J.S. Bach’s music: the outstanding Chinese pianist Zhu Xiao-Mei. Shot in places that are dear to her, such as Paris, Buenos Aires and the winter beauty of the Alps, Michel Mollard’s documentary centers on music and its mystery, on the links between Bach and Lao-Tze and on the dialogue between the cultures, especially between the West and China. It offers profound insight into the mind of a fascinating artist, her vision of the Goldberg Variations and on what makes this great masterpiece so powerful.
Mariss Jansons conducts Bruckner 4
In many ways, Haydn and Bruckner are polar opposites. Haydn was a natural talent, while Bruckner was a late bloomer; Haydn was a self-assured professional who wrote music for weddings and parties just as easily as he did for great noblemen, while Bruckner plodded along laboriously, often plagued by feelings of insecurity. Both produced outstanding music, however, as evidenced by Haydn’s energetic, sunny Cello Concerto, performed here by the leading Norwegian cellist Truls Mørk, and by Bruckner’s most well-balanced symphony, the ‘Romantic’. —— Program: Joseph HAYDN – Cello Concerto, Anton BRUCKNER – Symphony No.4 (‘Romantic’)