Schedule

Roberto Abbado conducts the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini, the Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma, and four vocal soloists in an outstanding performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, recorded at the Parco Ducale di Parma, Italy as part of Festival Verdi 2020. The soloists are soprano Eleonora Buratto, mezzosoprano Anita Rachvelishvili, tenor Giorgio Berrugi, and bass Roberto Tagliavini. When his fellow composer Gioachino Rossini died in 1868, Verdi proposed to compose a ‘Messa per Rossini’ in his honor, to be written by himself and several other Italian composers. Verdi wrote the concluding movement, ‘Libera me’. When the premiere was cancelled, the project lay dormant. When Italian poet Alessandro Manzoni passed away a few years later, Verdi revisited his plan to compose a requiem – this time in honor of the poet he so greatly admired. As an opera composer, Verdi knew better than anyone how to infuse the work with drama, as is evident in the revised version of his ‘Libera me’. The famous, powerful ‘Dies Irae’ especially stands out, depicting the horrors of the Last Judgement.

Pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim, Argentina's most famous musician, brings a Latin American flavour to the Berlin Philharmonic's 1998 concert at the Waldbühne amphitheater. The concert opens with Maurice Ravel's famous Boléro, a one-movement composition for orchestra originally composed as a ballet. A straightforward composition, it is based on a rhythm that repeats throughout the whole piece, with two melodies alternating between different instruments. The steady tempo increases in loudness until the final crescendo. The second piece is Georges Bizet's Carmen Suite No. 1. Following a chilling introduction, the oboe plays an instantly recognizable theme. The program gets more exotic when guitarist John Williams takes the stage for a performance of Joaquín Rodrigo's famous Concierto de Aranjuez. The rest of the program consists of beautiful Latin American pieces: Mangoré - Una limosna por el amor de dios, "El ultimo canto", Ginastera - Estancia Suite, Op. 8a: IV Malambo, Lecuona - La Comparsa, Malagueña, Salgan - Don Agustín Bardi, Piazzolla - Adiós Nonino, Decarissimo, Gardel - El día que me quieras, Rodriguez - La Cumparista, Mores - El Firulete and ends with Paul Linke's Frau Luna and Berliner Luft.

This documentary by Mark Perna shows the training and professional growth actions for opera singers, the promotion and enhancement of the cultural offer of the city and province of Modena and the maintenance and development of the Modenese musical tradition in the field of opera.

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.

Soprano Erika Baikoff (United States, 1994) and pianist Gary Beecher (Ireland, 1993) perform Franz Schubert’s ‘Suleika I, Was bedeutet die Bewegung’, Op. 14, No. 1 (D. 720); Die Blumensprache, Op. 173, No. 5 (D. 519); and, Die Gebüsche, D. 646; ‘Lied vom Winde’ and ‘Der Knabe und das Immlein’ from Hugo Wolf’s Mörike-Lieder; ‘Fleur jetée’ from Gabriel Fauré’s Quatre melodies, Op. 39; ‘C’ from Francis Poulenc’s Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon, FP 122; ‘Les lilas qui avaient fleuri’ from Lili Boulanger’s Clairières dans le ciel; Johanna Bordewijk-Roepman’s ‘Oranje may-lied’; and, ‘Eti letniye nochi’ (These summer nights) from Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Twelve romances, Op. 14, 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.

Malcolm Frager performs Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 5, K 175, a work of contrapuntal writing, a style that Mozart perfected under Padre Martini's tutelage. Discover the Orchestra della Radiotelevisione della Svizzera and conducted by Marc Andreae, at the Teatro Bibiena in Mantua.

French conductor Adrien Perruchon and the Flanders Symphony Orchestra take us on a musical journey to Mexico with this performance of Aaron Copland’s El Salón México (1936). Inspired by a visit to the colorful night club of the same name in Mexico City, Copland composed the vibrant orchestral work, incorporating Mexican folk tunes. This performance was recorded at Concertgebouw Brugge in Belgium, on March 1, 2017.

Chamber music ensemble The Philharmonics pays tribute to the music of Vienna in this March 9, 2011 concert from Vienna's Café Sperl. The ensemble, which consists of musicians from the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic, performs arrangements of five popular waltzes by Johann Straus II. Among them are Kaiser-Walzer, Op. 437, and Schatz-Walzer, Op. 418, from the operetta The Gypsy Baron. In May 1921, the likes of Arnold Schönberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern wrote these chamber music arrangements to raise funds for their Society for Private Musical Performances. Although both the concert and the auction of the scores were very successful, the Society eventually went under. In addition to these pieces by Strauss, The Philharmonics perform works by Fritz Kreisler, Leopold Godowsky, as well as The Philharmonics's first violinist, Tibor Kováč. The program comes to an end with Godowsky’s tribute to the city: Alt Wien.

Soprano Isabel Weller (Germany, 1994) and pianist Yuriko Watanabe (Japan, 1994) perform Claude Debussy’s Nuit d’étoiles, L. 2, and Mandoline, L. 43; Joseph Haydn’s Piercing eyes, Hob. XXVIa, No. 35; ‘Die Mainacht’ from Johannes Brahms’s Vier Gesänge, Op. 43; ‘Pietà’ from Paul Hindemith’s Das Marienleben, Op. 27; Bart Visman’s Vermeer’s Gold; and ‘Lied vom Winde’ from Hugo Wolf’s Mörike-Lieder, during the semi-finals of the International Vocal Competition 2021 – Lied Duo. This performance was recorded at Het Noordbrabants Museum in ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands.

Olivier Latry is the current holder of the Great Organ of Notre Dame. Between its original religious function and the interest of composers of all times, the great organ Cavaillé-Coll reveals its absolute modernity. Latry is considered one of the greatest organists of his generation, both in France and internationally. He sees himself as an ambassador of French music from the 17th through the 20th centuries as well as an advocate for the art of improvisation. Pieces played in the film are: Pierre Cochereau’s Boléro, Louis Vierne’s Carillon of Westminster and Scherzo from Symphony No. 2, Alexandre Guilmant’s Sonata No. 1, Charles-Marie Widor’s Gothic Symphony, Marcel Dupre’s Cortège, Litanie and J. S. Bach’s Passacaille & Fugue.

Conductor Jan Latham-Koenig leads the Flanders Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16. French pianist Pascal Amoyel features as the soloist. Grieg composed the work in 1868, drawing inspiration from Norwegian folk music. It is the composer’s only concerto. The work premiered on April 3, 1869 in Copenhagen, Denmark, with Edmund Neupert as the soloist, and was received enthusiastically. The Norwegian premiere followed a few months later. This performance was recorded at Concertgebouw Brugge, Belgium, on April 21, 2016.

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.

Renowned French string quartet Quatuor Ébène marked the 250th birth anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) with a remarkable project: recording all of the great composer’s sixteen string quartets. For five years, violinists Pierre Colombet and Gabriel Le Magadure, violist Marie Chilemme, and cellist Raphaël Merlin immersed themselves in Beethoven’s 650 pages of sheet music. Their efforts culminated in the performance of the composer’s complete repertoire for string quartet, which covers three decades of Beethoven's musical creativity, during six impressive concerts at Philharmonie de Paris in the autumn of 2020. This program features Quatuor Ébène performing Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132. This concert performance was recorded at Philharmonie de Paris on November 24, 2020.

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 play Ludwig van Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61. Leading violinist Grimal is the soloist. Beethoven’s Violin Concerto was composed in 1806 and is the composer’s only work in this genre. Its premiere was not very successful, and the work saw few performances in the decades that followed. However, a remarkable performance by 12-year old violinist Joseph Joachim in 1844 gave the Violin Concerto a new lease of life. Ever since, it is one of the most performed works in the genre. As an encore, Grimal performs the Allegro from J. S. Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 2 in A minor, BWV 1003. This performance was recorded at Philharmonie de Paris, France, in 2015.

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.

Acclaimed classical music talent scout Antonio Mormone (1930-2017) lives on as the name-giver of the Premio Internazionale Antonio Mormone (PIAM), awarded to the winner of the Italian music competition of the same name. The first edition of this competition, which was held in various venues in Milan from 2019 to 2021, was dedicated to the piano. As part of this competition, Micah McLaurin (USA, 1994) performs various works by Franz Liszt: Liebestraum No. 3 in A-flat major; Liszt’s arrangement of Robert Schumann’s Widmung S.566; Funérailles from the cycle Harmonies poétiques et religieuses; Sonetto 104 del Petrarca from Années de Pèlerinage II; and Mephisto Waltz No. 1. As an encore, McLaurin plays Frédéric Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2. This performance was recorded at Auditorium Giorgio Gaber in Milan, in January 2020.