Salzburg Easter Festival
PROGRAMME
E. GRIEG Peer Gynt Suite No. 1
P. I. TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto
D. SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 9
- Augustin Hadelich violin
- Gianandrea Noseda conductor
ABOUT THIS CONCERT
Although Salzburg has been one of our regular and much-cherished concert cities for many years, the MCO’s last participation in the Easter Festival dates back to 1998. We are very happy to be back!
This evening we celebrate two long awaited debuts:
Gianandrea Noseda has been internationally acclaimed for his thoughtful and "no-nonsense" Shostakovich interpretations; the German Rondo Magazine applauded the "chamber-music-like intimacy" created in one of his performances. The MCO is therefore eagerly looking forward to his reading of the Russian composer’s 9th Symphony, which is sometimes called his "classical" symphony because of its brevity, form, and frequent chamber character. After the victory over Germany in 1945, the Soviet leadership had asked for a glorious ode to Stalin and Russia’s heroes. Instead, Shostakovich "dreamed up a subversive neo-Classical construction which cocked a snook at the cult of the leader" (BBC). Full of mockery and hidden comments, this symphony was the last one composed by the composer for many years; he only started to write again for orchestra after Stalin’s death in 1953.
German-American violinist Augustin Hadelich has performed with leading orchestras worldwide and is currently artist-in-residence at the Konzerthaus Berlin. "I heard the Tchaikovsky concerto for the first time maybe at the age of eight, and I was flabbergasted...because it was so exciting and so full of passion!" said Hadelich recently in an interview for German Television (ARD).
The evening begins with Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite no. 1. Peer Gynt is a dreamer, a liar and a serial womaniser. Cast out from his hometown, Peer embarks on a wild and astonishing journey in search of fame and fortune that takes him from Norway to Africa and eventually back home again. Based on the 26 pieces originally written to illustrate Henrik Ibsen's verse drama of the same name, Grieg assembled two suites of which the one played tonight premiered in Leipzig in 1888.
photo (c) Suxiao Yang
SHARE
ADD TO CALENDAR
