Schedule

On the occasion of her 80th birthday, Argentinian pianist Martha Argerich explored chamber music repertoire in a wonderful concert, recorded at Château de Chantilly, France. The ‘Grande Dame’ of the piano is joined by various renowned artists. As part of this concert, violinist Tedi Papavrami, violist Lyda Chen-Argerich, cellist Mischa Maisky, and pianist Lily Maisky perform Johannes Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60.

This documentary by Christoph Keller follows various participants and teachers participating in the International Summer Piano Academy.

Swiss conductor Philippe Jordan and the Orchestre de l’Opéra national de Paris recorded all of Ludwig van Beethoven’s symphonies in 2014-2015. In this program, Jordan conducts Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21. This symphony shows Beethoven’s loyalty to the model of Joseph Haydn’s and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s late symphonies, yet reveals his attempt to distinguish himself from his predecessors. For instance, the work opens with a slow introduction that refuses to reveal the piece’s key. Equally remarkable are the unusual prominence of the woodwinds, and the scherzo-like tempo of the third movement bearing the indication ‘minuet’. This performance was recorded at Opéra Bastille in Paris, France, in 2014.

After recording all 32 Ludwig van Beethoven piano sonatas to celebrate the composer's 250th birth anniversary, celebrated Italian pianist Riccardo Schwartz decided to record solo piano works by Robert Schumann. In this performance, Schwartz performs Humoreske in B-flat major, Op. 20. Schumann composed the work in 1839 and dedicated it to German-Austrian composer Julie von Webenau. The piece’s title refers to humor as an emotional state. Schumann took his inspiration from German Romantic writer Jean Paul, who defines humor as “an infinity of contrast”, “a setting of the small world beside the great”, and where “a kind of laughter results which contains pain and greatness”. Humoreske is one continuous piece consisting of contrasting sections. Acclaimed pianist Riccardo Schwartz (1986) has performed as a soloist with many world-renowned conductors, including Gustav Kuhn and Yuri Temirkanov. His acclaimed performances include recitals and concertos for piano and orchestra in many prestigious concert halls.

Every year since 1991, the Berliner Philharmoniker has given concerts in a different European city on each May 1st. These concerts have become known as ‘Europakonzert’. Every guest city has its own special cultural importance. These concerts have served two purposes: to commemorate the anniversary of the orchestra’s founding on May 1st, 1882, and to celebrate the common heritage of the Old World. In 1991, soon after the opening of the Eastern European countries, the first Europakonzert took place in the Czech Republic in Prague. This decision was a deliberate step and an expression of willingness to support and to bring forward the democratization and the political social changes, especially in the cultural area. In 1996 the Europakonzert took place once again in Prague (at the National Theatre). To continue this tradition the Europakonzert 2013 was celebrated at the Prague Castle at the historical Spanish Hall. Conductor: Sir Simon Rattle. Soloist: Magdalena Kozená. Works: Ralph Vaughan Williams, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Antonín Dvořák, Ten Biblical Songs, Opus 99. Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68.

The award-winning Imperial Ice Stars are 26 Olympic, World, European and National Championship skaters, who jointly hold over 250 competition medals, performing theatrical ice dancing on a frozen theatre stage. The Imperial Ice Stars have received five-star praise from critics and standing ovations from audiences at some of the world's most prestigious venues - London’s Royal Albert Hall and Sadler's Wells, Singapore's Esplanade Theatre, Montreal's Place des Arts and Cape Town's Artscape. This stunning performance, filmed at the Melbourne Theatre Company in Australia, offers a new look on the secular tale of Sleeping beauty, with the original music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893).

The Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (Florence Musical May) is Italy’s oldest opera and arts festival. It was founded in 1933 with the aim of presenting contemporary and forgotten operas. Over the years, the scope widened, and orchestral concerts have long been an integral part of the festival. As part of the festival’s 2021 edition, maestro Daniel Harding leads the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in a performance of Johannes Brahms’s Tragic Overture in D minor, Op. 81. Brahms composed his concert overture during the summer of 1880. With its dark and tumultuous character, it could be regarded as the serious counterpart of his more joyful Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80. This performance was recorded at Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence, Italy, in 2021.

Since his spectacular debut recital at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in 2002, pianist Misha Fomin has become an indispensable part of Dutch musical life. National and international press praise his playing for its fluently natural virtuosity, rich color palette, and great musical intelligence. In this concert, recorded at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Fomin performs a number of pieces including Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (1874). The movements are separated by the Promenade: a recurring, varied theme that evokes the walk from one painting to the next. The various promenades are variations on the same theme, which recurs in two other movements (Cum mortus in lingua mortua and The Bogatyr Gates (In the Capital in Kiev)). Mussorgsky wrote this cycle in three weeks’ time in 1874. When Mussorgsky visited the exhibition of his friend, the late painter Viktor Hartmann, he wrote to a friend that “sounds and ideas hung in the air, I am gulping and overeating, and can barely manage to scribble them on paper.”

“The Unanswered Ives” is the first documentary about American modernist composer Charles Ives (1874-1954). Ives was among the first generation of American composers that achieved international acclaim. Born in 1874, in Danbury, Connecticut, Ives took music lessons at a young age, becoming a church organist at the age of 14. Following his graduation from the music department at Yale University, the young composer decided to pursue a career outside of the arts. He started working in insurance, co-founding an innovative and highly successful insurance company. It was in his spare time that Ives composed his ambitious music, in which he experimented with advanced features including polytonality, twelve-tone technique, and quarter tones. The documentary film “The Unanswered Ives” (2018) sheds light on Ives’s life and work in all its facets, exploring his aural world by showing music performances in churches, concert halls, open-air venues, and a circus tent. Using interviews with relatives, insurance brokers, musicologists, and musicians, documentary filmmaker Anne-Kathrin Peitz explores the question “who was Charles Ives?"

Riccardo Frizza leads the Orchestra and Chorus of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in a performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s tragic opera Rigoletto (1851). In 1850, Teatro La Fenice commissioned Verdi to compose a new opera. Verdi proposed Victor Hugo’s controversial play Le Roi s'amuse to his librettist Francesco Maria Piave. This play, which premiered in 1832 but was banned after only one performance, portrayed the monarchy in its worst vices. However, Verdi was determined to adapt the play to opera and reached a compromise with the censor. The opera revolves around Rigoletto, a hunchbacked jester at the court of the licentious Duke of Mantua. Rigoletto’s life is turned upside down when his latest wisecrack starts a vendetta that is far from amusing, leaving him cursed. In this 2021 production, Italian director Davide Livermore follows the story as we know it, but places it in a contemporary setting. Among the soloists are Javier Camarena (Duke of Mantua), Luca Salsi (Rigoletto), Enkeleda Kamani (Gilda), Alessio Cacciamani (Sparafucile), Caterina Piva (Maddalena), and Valentina Corò (Giovanna). This performance was recorded at Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence, Italy, in 2021.

Claude Debussy’s symphonic sketches for orchestra known collectively as ‘La Mer’ evoke a richly varied vision of the sea. The first part (‘De l’aube á midi sur la mer’) calls up a morning and afternoon at sea, the second (‘Jeux de vagues’) echoes the play of the waves, and the third and final part (‘Dialogue du vent et de la mer’) conjures the communing voices of wind and waves. Debussy knew his sea, the Mediterranean, intimately both from childhood visits to Cannes and from his Italian travels later in life.

Roberto Prosseda (1975) performs Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 5 (KV. 283) and four Impromptus Op. 90 by Franz Schubert. The performance ends with Chopin's technically demanding Ballade No. 4, Op. 52. Prosseda is particularly noted for his performances of newly discovered works by Mendelssohn and has recorded a nine-CD series for Decca of the piano works of Mendelssohn. Since 2012, Prosseda also gives lecture-concerts with the robot pianist TeoTronico, as educational or family concerts, to demonstrate differences between a literal production of music and human interpretation.