A documentary about the great soprano Anna Netrebko by the russian filmmaker Dmitry Sapun which follows her at home in Russia and New York and on the road as she prepares for her performances. It also features interviews with Anna herself, her family, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Piotr Beczala and many of her supporters such as Valery Gergiev and Plácido Domingo.
Andris Nelsons conducts Shostakovich – Symphony No. 5
Within the 2014/2015 season, Andris Nelsons is leading the RCO in three programmes, all featuring symphonies by Dmitry Shostakovich. The Fifth Symphony was presented as a public penance in 1937, when the composer had been rebuked by the Communist regime for producing music that failed to reflect Soviet ideals. Juxtaposed with Shostakovich’s dramatic symphony is the Oboe Concerto by Richard Strauss, who was born 150 years ago. This melodic work is dominated by nostalgia for a world that was lost forever, Strauss having written it towards the end of his life shortly after the Second World War. With the Nocturne by Marius Flothuis, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is commemorating not only a composer – Flothuis also served as the orchestra’s artistic director for many years.
Andris Nelsons conducts Shostakovich – Symphony No. 4 & Strauss, Flothuis
Andris Nelsons continues his Shostakovich series with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra with the Fourth Symphony. This complex symphony of gigantic proportions was written during the period when Dmitry Shostakovich had been relegated from the status of a national hero to that of a potential enemy of the state by Stalin. When rehearsals for the Fourth proved disastrous, Shostakovich decided to withdraw the work. Even today, though, the Fourth Symphony is performed relatively rarely, perhaps because of the great challenge it poses to both conductor and orchestra. Before the interval, the RCO’s very own principal violinist Liviu Prunaru and its principal cellist Gregor Horsch excelled in Brahms’s Double Concerto, his final orchestral work.
RCO: Mariss Jansons and Yuja Wang: Rossini, Shostakovich, Prokofieff
The Chinese pianist Yuja Wang made her first appearance with the RCO in September 2010 in a performance of Sergey Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto. Then 2003, Yuja Wang ‘commanded full attention with her cross-border pianism and the magic of her imagination. Wang left the audience dumbfounded, scored a triumph and stole every heart,’ wrote the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. She now returns with another Russian piano concerto in her fingers. Shostakovich wrote his First Piano Concerto at what was still a carefree time in his life, and this can clearly be heard in the piece. Particularly distinctive are the Haydn and Beethoven quotations. It is no accident that the concerto is preceded on this programme by Rossini’s equally cheerful overture to La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie). The overture forms a sharp contrast to Prokofiev’s monumental Symphony No. 5, which he wrote during the Second World War and which, according to the composer, expresses the ‘greatness of the human spirit’. But Prokofiev would hardly be Prokofiev if a touch of irony didn’t follow the heartbreaking Allegro.
RCO: Mariss Jansons conducts Mahler Symphony No. 4 (Kerstmatinee 2014)
RCO: Andris Nelsons conducts Strauss and Brahms
In 2014, Strauss’s birth 150 years ago is being commemorated. Strauss was a champion of the symphonic poem, and one of his first works in that genre was Macbeth. Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche followed soon after, fully revealing Strauss’s mastery in the sharp melodic characterisations and brilliant instrumentation. With its energetic and cheerful character (despite Till’s execution, which is vividly depicted in the music), the work complements Brahms’s Symphony No. 2, which is imbued with a sunny, lush atmosphere. The brilliance of the grand finale is a quality rarely heard in Brahms’s. (Cat. No. UNITEL: A865500160000)
Mariss Jansons conducts Shostakovich Symphony No. 5
In the first concert of their tournee through the musical metropolises of South-America starting in Buenos Aires, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under the baton of their musical director Mariss Jansons were celebrated by the audience for their interpretation of the 5th symphony by Shostakovich. In the sold out Teatro Colón, one of the biggest and most beautiful opera houses in the world, they “succeeded in delivering a moving, profound interpretation at the highest musical level” (SZ).
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)
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”.