Schedule

The Lucerne Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Neeme Järvi presents the world premiere of Rodion Shchedrin's Double concerto for cello, piano and orchestra. Soloists are Martha Argerich (piano) and Mischa Maisky (cello). The concert program features Antonín Dvořák's Scherzo capriccioso Des-Dur Op. 66, B 131, Shchedrin's aforementioned Double concerto "Romantic Offering", César Franck's Sonata for piano and cello in A, and Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 9, Op. 70. This première performance was recorded at the Culture and Congress Centre of Lucerne, KKL, on February 9, 2011. The Lucerne Symphony Orchestra is orchestra-in-residence at KKL Luzern. The Lucerne Symphony Orchestra is Switzerland’s oldest symphony orchestra and has won an international standing that extends far beyond its home base.

The German Brass is one of the most original and distinctive brass ensembles in the world. This group of talented musicians performs classical arrangements, dance versions of standards, and popular tunes that reflect an exceptional musical spirit. Inspired by an animated show presented by the ensemble, Hunting Brass: A Musical Joke paints a colorful portrait of the German Brass: during a rehearsal, his musicians are suddenly confronted with doubles who steal their instruments and form their wild orchestra!

This gala concert at Prague's beautiful Estates Theatre is one of the highlights of Mozart Year 2006. Conducted by Manfred Honeck, the Czech Philharmonic performs W. A. Mozart's finest compositions connected to the city of Prague in general or to the Estates Theatre in particular. Among them is Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, which premiered in Prague in 1791. This 2006 recording features clarinettist Sharon Kam. Mozart's Prague Symphony is invariably on the program. The Overture to Don Giovanni is also associated with the Estates Theatre, which is where Mozart conducted it in 1787.

During the New Year’s Gala 2010, the Berlin Philharmonic perform under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel, whose infectious energy and exceptional artistry have made him one of the most sought-after conductors by orchestras and opera companies around the world. They welcome mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča, who has become one of the world’s most famous singers within just a few years. On the program are various works by French composers, like Berlioz’ Le Carnival Romain, Overture, Op. 9 and D’Amour l’ardente flamme’ from La Damnation de Faust (Op. 24), Saint-Saëns’ ‘Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix’ and ‘Danse Bacchanale’ from his opera Samson et Dalila and the ‘Habanera’, ‘Seguidilla’ and ‘Chanson Bohème’ from Bizet’s Carmen. The concert concludes with de Falla’s Suite No. 2 from the ballet ‘El sombrero de tres picos’.

Baritone Hugo Laporte (Canada) performs ‘Alzati … Eri tu che macchiavi quell’anima’ from Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Un ballo in maschera; ‘Vy tak pechalny … Ya vas lyublyu’ from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s opera Pique Dame; and ‘Largo al factotum’ from Gioachino Rossini’s opera Il barbiere di Siviglia, during the final round of the Aria division of the Concours musical international de Montréal 2022 (CMIM). He is accompanied by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Jacques Lacombe. This performance was recorded at Montreal Symphony House.

If it wasn’t for the labours of Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn, we might never have known about Franz Schubert’s final and unfinished symphony. Having composed his ‘Great’ symphony, Schubert lacked the financial means to stage a performance and sent the score to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. There, the work was played in its entirety only once, after which it was judged to be too demanding for performance. On a visit to the same institute in 1836, ten years after Schubert’s death, his colleague Robert Schumann was shown the score of Schubert’s final symphonic work. He returned with a copy to Leipzig, where the chapel-master of the Gewandhaus, Felix Mendelssohn, conducted its first performance. Reviewing this concert in his ‘Neue Zeitschrift’, Schumann awarded special praise to the ‘divine duration’ of Schubert’s symphony.

The pianist Evgeni Koroliov interprets J. Bach's Goldberg Variations (BWV 988) as part of the Leipzig Bachfest. This work was originally composed for the harpsichord, and includes an aria and 30 variations. Published for the first time in 1741, the Goldberg Variations are considered one of the most important examples of the "theme with variations" form. Koroliov's performance of Bach's work is generally a source of great excitement, and his interpretation of the Goldberg Variations is no exception. This concert was recorded at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in June 2008.

We live in a ,,renaissance of the piano”, as the New York Times has recently put it. With virtuosic flair and an eagerness to expand the repertoire, a new generation of pianists has revitalized the instrument’s appeal. In addition to the usual classics, they perform formerly scorned works or discover neglected composers. Legato is a series dedicated to presenting some of this new movement's most fascinating pianists – their individual approaches, their fresh ideas and their music. Every episode portrays an artist and shows an aspect of the world of the piano. The sum of these portraits provides viewers with an overall picture of the art of the pianist. Montréal native Marc-André Hamelin is internationally renowned for his musical virtuosity and refined pianism. The Times described one of his performances as “ultimate perfection”.

Can we get into Beethoven’s creative mind, especially in the last phase of his life, when he was coping with severe hearing loss? Tom Beghin’s new recording of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Opus 109, 110, and 111 is an artistic exploration of how Beethoven’s musicking was shaped by the work environment he created with the help of colleagues and friends. Not only does pianist Tom Beghin perform Beethoven’s trilogy of pianistic masterpieces on a magnificent new replica of Beethoven’s Broadwood piano, he uses a reconstruction of the Gehörmaschine that was mounted on the composer’s piano so he could continue to create music as his hearing declined. ‘You do hear better when you bring your head under this machine, don’t you?’ André Stein asked Beethoven. Two centuries later, we too can bring our heads under the machine and wonder: Do we hear Beethoven differently? Beghin draws us inside the hearing machine, where we feel as well as hear the essence of Beethoven’s rambunctious and irresistibly poetic musical vibrations. Inside the Hearing Machine invites us into the multisensory playground of a deaf composer for whom the machine was more than a hearing aid and who interacted with his instrument through much more than sound.

During late summer every year, some of the world's best musicians meet in Israel for the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival (JCMF), established by pianist Elena Bashkirova and Yeheskell Beinisch. In 2016, the 19th festival was dedicated to the music of interrelated composers, such as Brahms and Schumann, and Schubert and Beethoven – performed by outstanding artists such as Sir András Schiff, Baiba Skride, Menahem Pressler and Emmanuel Pahud in the halls of the Jerusalem YMCA. This documentary film features excerpts from performances of the following works: Johannes Brahms's String Sextet no. 1, Op. 18; Franz Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata in A minor, D. 821; Antonín Dvořák's Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major, Op. 81; Ferruccio Busoni's Fantasia Contrappuntistica; Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Trio no. 1, Op. 49; and Ludwig van Beethoven's Quintet for Piano and Winds, Op. 16.

Having achieved incredible success with consistently sold-out concerts, the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival is renowned for its exceptional repertoire of performances by top soloists who otherwise seldom share a stage. This program presents highlights of the 2008 edition, of which the theme centered on the exploration of the “national spirit” of music.

Maurice Ravel's choreographic symphony Daphnis et Chloé has been described by Ravel as his most important score. It is considered by scholars as the composer's summum bonum of orchestral art and bring together the Ballets de Monte-Carlo under the direction of choreographer Jean-Christophe Maillot who on this occasion meets up once again with Ernest Pignon-Ernest and Jérôme Kaplan. This tender love story features two children, beautiful and pure characters, which nothing will ever separate. The pastoral novel was written by Longus in the 3rd century.

Pierre Boulez conducts the Berlin Philharmonic in this program dedicated to the music of Béla Bartók. Gidon Kremer, one of the leading violinists of our day, performs Bartók’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1 (Sz. 36); Yuri Bashmet, one of the finest viola players of our time, is the featured soloist in Bartók’s Concerto for Viola und Orchestra (Sz. 120). The orchestra plays The Miraculous Mandarin (Sz. 73) and Dance Suite (Sz. 77).

Discover the finest opera houses. Travel with us to Germany in this episode, and get the insider's perspective on the Semperoper in Dresden. Designed by famous nineteenth-century architect Gottfried Semper, many people regard this opera house as Germany’s most beautiful. Semper had previously designed the Grosse Königliche Theatre in Dresden, which opened in 1842 but burned to the ground in 1869. Semper’s second monumental structure, constructed over a period of nine years, was piteously destroyed in the Second World War. For four decades, its facade provisionally secured, the Semperoper remained a ruin during the days of the German Democratic Republic. After difficult and meticulous restoration work, it was reopened in 1985 in the presence of about 150,000 enthusiastic spectators. The Semperoper is home to Europe's oldest symphony orchestra, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden. The orchestra, formerly known as the Hofkapelle, has a 450-year-old history. Composer Richard Wagner once called the Staatskapelle a “magic harp”. He served as its Kapellmeister for six years and premiered Rienzi, The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser with the orchestra. Whereas Dresden was associated with Wagner in the nineteenth century, in the early twentieth century it had close ties with Richard Strauss. Nine of Strauss’s 15 works, among them Salome, Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier, premiered at the Semperoper. Richard Strauss even called it “an El Dorado for premieres!

Italian cellist and conductor Enrico Bronzi leads the Orchestra da Camera di Perugia in this intimate concert at the magnificent Basilica di San Pietro in the Italian city of Perugia, recorded on September 27, 2021. Opening the program is a cello performance by Bronzi with the Orchestra da Camera di Peruglia: the Andante cantabile from Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 13 in D major, Hob. I:13. Then, Italian pianists Linda Di Carlo and Marco Scolastra join the orchestra for a performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Concerto for two pianos and orchestra in E-flat major, K. 365. Next up is Mozart’s concert aria "Ch'io mi scordi di te? ... Non temer, amato bene", K. 505, sung by Italian mezzosoprano Marina Comparato. Accompanied by Linda Di Carlo on piano, she closes the concert with the aria “Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix” from Camille Saint-Saëns’s opera Samson and Delilah.

On January 27, 2006, Chinese virtuoso pianist Lang Lang celebrated WA Mozart's birthday with a performance of the Piano Concerto No. 24 in the Forbidden City Concert Hall of Beijing with the China Philharmonic Orchestram directed by Long Yu. The concert hall is located inside the walls of the Forbidden City, in the beautifully maintained gardens of Zhongshan Park, directly adjacent to Tiananmen Square. The program of the concert also includes the opening of Cosi fan tutte, Symphony No. 25, KV 183, "Hai gia came the causa!" from Le Nozze di Figaro, "Finch'han dal vino" from Don Giovannia, and Piano Sonata No. 10, K. 330.

Les Dissonances is a collective of artists founded by violinist David Grimal in 2004. The conductorless ensemble consists of musicians from the most prestigious European orchestras, international soloists, and young talents. In this performance, Les Dissonances’ string quartet – consisting of David Grimal (violin), Hans Peter Hofmann (violin), David Gaillard (viola), and Xavier Phillips (cello) – performs Franz Schubert’s String Quartet No. 15 in G major, D. 887, Op. 161. Schubert composed this work, his final string quartet, in a mere ten days in June 1826. However, this highly original piece, characterized by its restless shifts between major and minor, was not published until after Schubert’s death in 1851. This performance was recorded at Cité de la Musique in Paris, France, in 2014.