20250312 Online Stream Musical Events
1. Jakub Hrůša and Seong-Jin Cho
Platform: Berlin Phil Digital Concert Hall
Date of broadcast: March 16, 2025 at 2:00 AM
Link: https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/55646
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.
2. Music of the Romantic era with Zubin Mehta and Himari
Platform: Berlin Phil Digital Concert Hall
Date of broadcast: March 23, 2025 at 2:00 AM
Link: https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/55647
Schubert’s “Great” C major Symphony is considered the epitome of Romantic orchestral music – it creates a world of sound that is both idyllic and full of yearning. Zubin Mehta has also included two other works from this period in the programme: Carl Maria von Weber’s overture to the magical opera Oberon and Henryk Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with its combination of soulful expression and breathtaking virtuosity. The just 13-year-old Himari makes her debut as the soloist.
3. Franz Welser-Möst conducts Beethoven's Fifth Symphony with The Cleveland Orchestra
Platform: Medici.tv
Date of broadcast: Sunday, March 16, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Link: https://edu.medici.tv/en/concerts/franz-welser-most-cleveland-orchestra-beethoven-symphony-5-leonore-overture-janacek-house-of-dead-suite
There's no mistaking the four-note motif that opens Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, and it's only the beginning of this inspiring concert by Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra in support of those fighting for freedom across our world. The Fifth, in the maestro's words, "shows us the journey from darkness to light," culminating in a burst of irrepressible C major triumph. Music from Janáček’s haunting operatic vision of a Siberian prison camp, From the House of the Dead, "reveals how human dignity survives even in the most desolate of circumstances," and the Leonore Overture — one of four versions Beethoven composed for Fidelio — is "simply the greatest music about freedom ever written."
4. Gianandrea Noseda conducts Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 2 (with Leonidas Kavakos) and Stravinsky's Petrushka
Platform: Medici.tv
Date of broadcast: Monday, March 17, 2025 at 3:00 AM
Link: https://edu.medici.tv/en/concerts/gianandrea-noseda-conducts-shostakovich-violin-concerto-no-2-leonidas-kavakos-stravinsky-petrushka-national-symphony-orchestra
Dmitri Shostakovich composed his final concerto for the great David Oistrakh, and its profound expressiveness and intricate double-stop passages call for a violinist of Oistrakh's superhuman ability — one like Greek virtuoso Leonidas Kavakos, who performs the Violin Concerto No. 2 here with maestro Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony Orchestra! Kavakos is "a wonder" whose Shostakovich has been known to make members of the world's top orchestras spontaneously applaud, an artist of otherworldly precision from whom the music flows "like a river — big, glistening and unobstructed, but also tasteful in its frictionless subtleties" (New York Times). Noseda and the NSO round out the program with another 20th-century Russian masterpiece: Stravinsky's bold, vibrant music for the ballet Petrushka, one of the crowning achievements of the legendary Ballets Russes.
5. Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Bruckner's Symphony No. 3 and Strauss's Four Last Songs with Angel Blue
Platform: Medici.tv
Date of broadcast: Saturday, March 22, 2025 at 3:15 AM
"The wonder of Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s Bruckner," writes Gramophone, "is in its dynamic sweep and attentiveness to detail, its flexibility and appreciation of Bruckner’s harmonic boldness." Yannick, who headed the world-class Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra for ten years and makes the most of every return trip to De Doelen, leads his longtime colleagues in Bruckner's Third Symphony. Met by a chilly reception in its initial 1873 version, the Third was subject to more revisions than any other symphony by the famously perfectionistic composer and, in its most commonly performed form, is often considered to mark the point at which Bruckner reached artistic maturity. Joining Yannick and the RPhO is the extraordinary American soprano Angel Blue, who performs one of the most emotionally potent song cycles ever composed: Strauss's Four Last Songs, the final creations of a composer who knew he had reached the twilight of his life and imbued these songs with all the exquisite, bittersweet pathos of that knowledge.
