Liszt – Ravel – Beethoven (O)

Two short but distinctive concert pieces with solo piano and in contrast to them Beethoven's iconic Symphony of Fate - this is the program conducted by Briton Jonathan Darlington, music director of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra and former chief conductor of the Duisburg Philharmonic and the Opera in Vancouver, Canada. Franz Liszt, piano virtuoso and conductor and composer innovator, connected musical epochs. In Vienna, he was taught not only by Beethoven's pupil Carl Czerny, but also by Beethoven's teacher Antonio Salieri. And in Paris he still studied privately with Antonín Rejcha. He is the author of thirteen symphonic poems, a new form that he himself named. Even his piano compositions were visionary. Both in the area of ​​pianistic technique and musical forms. They are extremely challenging to play, monumental in sound, but they subordinate virtuosity to content. Liszt was obsessed with religion, heaven and hell, he was fascinated by death. In the case of Dance of Death, a paraphrase of a Gregorian chant melody based on the text of Dies irae, a scene of the Last Judgment, the modernist character of the piano part is a clearly innovative aspect. Almost a century younger Concerto for piano left hand and orchestra by Maurice Ravel, a work from the early 1930s, is no less innovative. It was commissioned by the Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right hand during the First World War. There is also an arrangement of the piece for piano for both hands, which Ravel did not approve of and forbade its performance.

Program:

• Franz Liszt: Dance of Death for Piano and Orchestra
• Maurice Ravel: Piano Concerto for the Left Hand
• Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony no. 5 "Fateful"

The public dress rehearsal will take place on October 21, 2024 from 10:00 a.m.