Events

Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 is actually the second one he composed – scholars speculate that he chose to publish it first in order to knock the socks off his Viennese audience. He almost certainly accomplished that: in 1798, this would have been the biggest concerto ever performed in terms of orchestra size, and the piano cadenza in the first movement alone is incredible. Orion Weiss brings this brilliant, virtuosic, and playful piece to life with the Festival Chamber Orchestra. A miniature masterpiece by Gioacchino Rossini (of Barber of Seville fame) opens the program–the festive overture to his opera The Silken Staircase.

As one might expect, Beethoven’s first symphony follows many of the traditions and “rules” inherited from Haydn and Mozart–the symphonic masters of the day. Even so, Beethoven’s unique voice and defiance of the expectations of his time shine through in many ways—starting with the opening chord (which dodged the symphony’s C Major key that audiences would have expected) and continuing through an unusually slow introduction to the finale. Stephanie Childress begins the program with Britten’s Simple Symphony, an energetic and cheerful work whose movements include titles such as “Playful Pizzicato” and “Frolicsome Finale.”

Pianist Orion Weiss joins with several Festival Orchestra musicians for an evening of chamber music.

Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen is a profoundly mournful and beautiful work; written for 23 strings in the final days of World War II, it is the composer's lament for the destruction of, in his words, “Germany’s 2,000 years of cultural evolution.” Its concluding theme is a musical homage to the funeral march from Beethoven’s “Eroica” symphony. Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 is the first of his final three great symphonies, one for which “refined elegance” might be an apt descriptor. It’s a rare treat for clarinet lovers: with oboes absent from Mozart’s score, the clarinets take on an unusually prominent role.