Performers

Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra
Lahav Shani – conductor
Kirill Gerstein – piano

Program

Johannes Brahms – Tragic Overture, Op. 81
Béla Bartók – Piano Concerto No. 3, Sz. 119
Johannes Brahms – Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68

Admission 45, 39, 29 €      Tickets

In 2016 the young Israeli Lahav Shani debuted both as a pianist and conductor leading the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra; at present he is its music director. We will welcome this renowned and sought-after master of the baton for the first time here, similarly to the magnificent soloist Kirill Gerstein, whose performance is valued especially for its flexible combination of Russian, American and European schools. The opening Tragic Overture by Johannes Brahms does not reflect a particular tragedy, but endeavours to capture the turbulent passions and contradictions typical for the classical tragedy. It took Brahms fourteen long years, or even longer, as he himself declared, to compose his First Symphony. The reason for it may have been his struggle to draw closer to his paragon, musical hero of Classicism, Beethoven. He wrote to his friend Levi: “You have no idea how someone like me feels when he hears such a giant marching behind him all of the time!” Béla Bartók composed his 3rd Piano Concerto while gravely ill. It only sounded several months after the composer’s death in 1946 in Philadelphia and was welcomed with a huge success.