Schedule

Pianist Muzi Li (China, 1998) performs Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Moments musicaux, Op. 16; and Triana from Isaac Albéniz’s Iberia (book 2), during the first round of the Piano Edition of the Concours musical international de Montréal 2024 (CMIM). This performance was recorded at the Bourgie Hall of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

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 wonderful concert program featuring Johannes Brahms’s Tragic Overture in D minor, Op. 81, and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in D major, ‘Titan’. 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. Mahler completed his first symphony eight years later, in 1888. Originally a five-movement piece, the composer discarded the second movement ‘Blumine’ some years later, resulting in the final four-movement version we know today. This performance was recorded at Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence, Italy, in 2021.

In this recital, Roberto Giordano plays the Six Pieces for Piano, op. 118 of Brahms, a collection completed in 1893 and dedicated to Clara Schumann who will be the penultimate produced by the composer during his lifetime. The concert program also includes two Beethoven sonatas, the famous Moonlight Sonata No. 14, op. 27, and Sonata No. 31, op. 110, one of the last sonatas signed by the composer. This concert was recorded at Villa Visconti Borromeo Litta, in the Italian city of Lainate, in 2017. Directed by: Pietro Tagliaferri.

Indian conductor Zubin Mehta (1936) became Music Director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) in 1977 and was appointed Music Director for Life in 1981. On July 18, 1996, Mehta led the IPO in its first-ever performance of Richard Strauss’s tone poem Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, Op. 28. Renowned as one of the world’s foremost interpreters of the great symphonic repertoire—especially the Romantic works of Anton Bruckner, Gustav Mahler, and Richard Strauss—Mehta had conducted this popular masterpiece many times before. However, this was the first occasion he rehearsed it from the very beginning with the orchestra. This episode of ‘In Rehearsal’ offers an intimate look at the dialogue between Mehta and the musicians as they explore Strauss’s tone poem together.

Daniel Harding leads the Orchestra and Choir of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and four vocal soloists in a magnificent performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem in D minor, K. 626. The soloists are soprano Christiane Karg, mezzosoprano Sara Mingardo, tenor Matthew Swensen, and bass Gianluca Buratto. The Austrian Count Walsegg commissioned Mozart to compose a Requiem in July 1791 to commemorate his late wife, Anna. At the time, Mozart was busy working on his operas La clemenza di Tito and The Magic Flute. By the time he started on the Requiem, in the fall of that same year, his health was seriously declining. Mozart passed away in December 1791, leaving the Requiem uncompleted. His pupil Franz Xaver Süssmayr completed Mozart’s swan song in the form known today, based on Mozart’s sketches and possibly verbal instructions. This performance was recorded at Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence, Italy, in 2021.

On 22 April 2016, Yehudi Menuhin would have celebrated his 100th birthday. One of his most famous students - and one of his best friends - is violinist Daniel Hope. For him, Yehudi Menuhin was the reason he become a violinist. At first, his mother became the secretary of Menuhin when Daniel Hoe and his parents moved to London. Hope grew up in Menuhin's house and learned not only to love music, but also to make the violin a part of his life. Playing the violin every day is like walking every day, or drinking and eating. He played with Menuhin some of Bartok's Duos which was, according to Hope, an introduction to Bartok’s extraordinary music. A piece of Bartok had to be part of this program as well as Ravel's Kaddish, the encore Daniel Hope choose when Menuhin conducted his last concert in Düsseldorf. But this concert starts with Elgar's Violin Concerto. Hope plays with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin under the baton of Iván Fischer.

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.

Created under the reign of Louis XIV (the Sun King and the dancing King) the École de danse de l'Opéra national de Paris celebrates its 300th birthday. For three centuries, the ballet school has carried out the mission of passing its traditions to artists of the future. The celebration held in 2013 at the Opéra national de Paris showcases the school’s work and evolution, and features pupils, conductor Marius Stieghorst, and the Orchestre des Lauréats du Conservatoire.

In May 2019, the new principal conductor of the Gewandhaus, Andris Nelsons, presented Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 with his orchestra in combination with Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with outstanding violinist Baiba Skride as the soloist. In this composition, the violin does not allow itself a break, continually tells its dark story and gets into a vicious circle of ostinato Passacaglia bass lines again and again falls into beguilingly beautiful singing. Tchaikovsky initially thought his 'Symphony of Fate' was a failure and believed himself to be at the end of his creative powers. It was probably the composer's nature, plagued by self-doubt, that made it almost impossible for him to develop a self-confident attitude to his own creative power. Between this two works, Skride performs Stravinsky's Elegy for Solo Violin.

Watch the series ‘Discovering Masterpieces’, your audio-visual concert guide to the great masterpieces of classical music. The series brings you 20 half-hour documentaries on 20 classical masterpieces: acclaimed experts, famous soloists and outstanding conductors take you on a journey back to the time and place of composition. In today’s documentary, Bela Bartok’s ‘Concerto for Orchestra’ is discussed. This piece is one of the most frequently performed works of the twentieth century. Pierre Boulez explains how he interpreted this composition with the Berlin Philharmonic. He also describes its fascination against the backdrop of Bartok’s biography.

Jenny Chen (1994, Taiwan) performs Duo 'sur des thèmes polonais' (S127) during semi-final II (chamber music) of the 11th International Franz Liszt Piano Competition, held in TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht, in 2017. The competition actively presents, develops, and promotes piano talents from around the world. In doing so, it has become one of the prominent gateways to the international professional classical music scene for young musicians. The International Franz Liszt Piano Competition was founded in 1986 in the Netherlands and has since built a reputation as one of the world’s most prestigious piano competitions.

Young Venezuelan conductor Glass Marcano is a rising star. Having played in various local youth and symphony orchestras as a violinist, her first experience conducting an ensemble followed in 2012. In September 2020, she won the Orchestra Prize at La Maestra Competition – the first orchestra direction contest for women – held in Paris. In this concert, recorded at Opéra de Tours in February 2021, Marcano leads the Orchestre Symphonique Région Centre-Val de Loire/Tours in performances of two Romantic masterpieces. The program opens with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, featuring Stéphanie-Marie Degand as the soloist. This piece is one of the most important works in its genre. The program concludes with Georges Bizet’s 1855 Symphony in C major, written when the composer was only 17 years old.

Franz Welser-Möst conducts The Cleveland Orchestra in this performance of Brahms' Symphony No. 3. A late-romantic treasure, this work demonstrates the evolution of the composer's modest symphonic output, balancing the brightness of his Second Symphony with the monumentality of his Fourth Symphony. Strangely enough, even though the Third reaches several glorious outpourings of massed winds and strings, the work ends in pianissimo, leaving the listener taken aback, reflective rather than jubilant. This performance was recorded at the Vienna Musikverein, Austria, in 2014.

Quarteto Radamés Gnattali performs Heitor Villa-Lobos's String Quartet No. 2 at the Palácio do Catete in Rio de Janiero, Brasil. The ensemble was founded in 2006 and consists of Carla Rincón and Francisco Roa (violins), Fernando Thebaldi (viola), and Hugo Pilger (cello). The quartet, which specializes in Brazilian music, focuses on educational activities. Their recording of all of Villa-Lobos string quartets is a major achievement and was very well received by international music critics. Except for his Bachianas brasileiras, the performance of many of the Brazilian's compositions is limited to Latin America. Highly regarded as a composer, conductor and educator in his native country, Villa-Lobos has operas, symphonies, concertos, piano repertoire, choral music, and seventeen string quartets to his credit.

Soprano Harriet Burns (United Kingdom, 1989) and pianist Ian Tindale (United Kingdom, 1990) perform Franz Schubert’s Verklärung, D. 59; Clara Schumann’s Er ist gekommen in Sturm und Regen, Op. 12, No. 2; ‘L’heure exquise’ from Reynaldo Hahn’s Chansons grises, and ‘Le printemps’ from Hahn’s Douze rondels; ‘Herzeleid’ from Robert Schumann’s Sechs Gesänge, Op. 107; ‘Le corbeau et le renard’ from André Caplet’s Trois fables; Alphons Diepenbrock’s Die Liebende schreibt, RC 20; ‘Seranilla de la zarzuela’ from Judith Weir’s A Spanish liederbooklet; Muriel Herbert’s Renouncement; and ‘Waldmädchen’ from Hugo Wolf’s Eichendorff-Lieder, during the final round of the International Vocal Competition 2019 – Lied Duo. This performance was recorded at Theater aan de Parade in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands.