Take Your Seat: W. A. Mozart’s Advent Concerto – LIVE STREAM
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LIVE from Berlin on Sunday, December 6
Sun, 6 Dec 2015, 8 p.m. (Berlin time)
Till Fellner, Berliner Philharmoniker and Bernard Haitink in W. A. Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K. 503
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The Piano Concerto in C major K. 503 that Mozart composed for one of his four concerts in the Advent season in 1786, is the last of the twelve great piano concertos written in Vienna between 1784 and 1786 and was presented at his highly successful subscription concerts series. Though Mozart performed it on several occasions, it was not considered as brilliant as many others and it only gained acceptance in the standard repertoire in the later part of the twentieth century. Evidence suggests that Beethoven chose it in 1795 for one of his first Viennese appearances as soloist.
As with some of Mozart’s later piano concertos he experimented with form and orchestration. This last of Mozart’s four C major piano concertos is a work of immense structural integrity rather than cultivated thematic charm. The first movement is unusually long for that era (432 measures without cadenza) and is characterized by a complex, symphonic approach that extends far beyond the concert form customary at the time. The “Marseillaise”-like and arguably patriotic second theme is also most evident though the French anthem in fact wasn’t published until 1792. The third movement is a serious-minded sonata-rondo that opens with a gavotte theme from Mozart’s opera Idomeneo. Like the first movement, it touches upon the minor displaying sections with bold, almost Brahmsian harmonic progressions. However, sunlight pours illuminates the final refrain.
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Till Fellners Debut with Berliner Philharmoniker
Austrian pianist Till Fellner is regarded as modest, profound and completely at the service of the music and with unpretentious, earnest manner. Fellner has played his way into the league of the great pianists of our time. A student of Alfred Brendel, he performed piano trios by Haydn and Beethoven together with violinist Corey Cerovsek and cellist Adrian Brendel as a part a 2011 Berliner Philharmonic chamber concert. He already then established himself as a specialist for the music of the Viennese classical school. Fellner’s international career was launched in 1993 when he won First Prize at the renowned Clara Haskil Competition in Vevey, Switzerland. Over a period of more than two decades, he has become a sought-after guest with many of the world’s most important orchestras and at the major music centres of Europe, USA and Japan, as well as numerous festivals. He has collaborated with Claudio Abbado, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Semyon Bychkov, Christoph von Dohnányi, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Sir Charles Mackerras, Kurt Masur, Kent Nagano, Jonathan Nott, Kirill Petrenko, Claudius Traunfellner and Hans Zender, among many others.
Legendary Bernard Haitink Takes the Stand
Bernard Haitink is a guest conductor who has been working together with the orchestra since 1964 on a regular and frequent basis. He has repeatedly placed Anton Bruckner’s symphonies on his concert programmes. Like virtually no other practitioner of his craft, Haitink understands how to organize the vast masses of sound of these works, and to build up the tremendous cumulations of this music convincingly and stirringly. He last performed the Fourth here, known as the Romantic, in March 2014. The Austrian composer’s ninth and last symphony was played with the Philharmoniker only once under his direction, namely in 1989. This work, dedicated by Bruckner “to the beloved God”, remained unfinished. When he died, the composer left behind only three completed movements and extensive sketches for the Finale. This symphony is evocative of Beethoven’s Ninth not only because of the key of D minor; like it, the first movement of Bruckner’s work begins quasi from an archaic source, ultimately creating a musical world that opened the gates to the modern era.
About the Digital Concert Hall
In 2008, the Berlin Philharmonic, in partnership with Deutsche Bank and Sony, started posting its live performances on the Internet via the Digital Concert Hall, or DCH. Seven high-definition cameras capture all the musical action within the Philharmonie. Highlighting the intriguing interpretations of principal conductor Sir Simon Rattle, the fantastic audio quality of the multimedia files is at once accurate and thrilling. The operators inside the video studio make the recordings available a few days after each performance.
More than 1.5 million people have taken advantage of the streamed offerings over the last five years. With access to a combination of almost 400 recordings that include concerts, educational programming and interviews with conductors, soloists and orchestra members, site visitors can enjoy the entire gamut of Berlin Philharmonic musical experiences.
The site also provides extensive program notes for each piece; conductors and soloists often speak about both the program in question and about their careers. Many world-renowned pianists count themselves among the interviewed, and keyboardists the world over can virtually pick their brains regarding a wide range of material. The website catalogs everything, and web surfers can use a powerful search tool to find artists, pieces and specific performances they want. After discovering each hidden gem, users can bookmark their favorites. There is even a section dedicated to documentaries and other short films.
A vast number of piano concertos with top performers are available in the DCH archive. Artists include: Argerich, Zimerman, Kissin, Wang, Pires, Vogt, Barenboim, Volodos, Uchida, Perahia, Schiff, Aimard, Grimaud, Matsuev, Bronfman, Andsnes, Ax, Pollini, Hamelin, Berezovsky, Pressler, Buchbinder and Katia and Marielle Labèque.
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