Jakub Hrůša and Seong-Jin Cho
Artist in Residence Seong-Jin Cho was already impressed by Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 as a child, “by this masculine and brilliant style of music”. His view has since developed further, because “the music is not only fiery, but also lyrical, deep and broad”. Here he performs the work with Jakub Hrůša. The programme also includes Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, one of the composer’s most popular works. Leoš Janáček’s suite from the opera Osud is a discovery.
When Ludwig van Beethoven composed his last piano concerto, his relationship with Napoleon had reached a low point: Bonaparte’s troops occupied Vienna, and there was little left of the ideals of the French Revolution. Beethoven gave free rein to his now anti-Napoleonic views in the Fifth Piano Concerto, in the Eroica key of E flat major. While the first movement is characterised by martial rhythms, aggressive themes and heroic pathos, the lyrical second movement is like a musical vision of peace. After this, the dance-like finale could be interpreted as an exuberant celebration of the newly won ceasefire. Under the direction of Jakub Hrůša, the exceptional Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho gives his interpretation of Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto.
Before that, Hrůša presents a new arrangement of a suite from Leoš Janáček’s lesser-known musical drama Osud (Fate). In his symbolist mystery play, the composer surprised his audience at the time by exploring new harmonic, metrical and instrumental expressive possibilities. The programme concludes with Béla Bartók’s colourful Concerto for Orchestra, one of the 20th century’s most impressive works and one of the composer’s most frequently performed pieces. The individual instruments and instrumental groups repeatedly come to the fore in this virtuoso concerto. The five movements are grouped symmetrically around an impressionistic and iridescent Elegia. In the captivating finale, elements of Eastern European folklore are combined with characteristic jazz flourishes.
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