Join us to hear the first concert in The Philadelphia Orchestra’s "Music of Vienna" series, recorded live last January at Verizon Hall. Pianist Jan Lisiecki, an audience favorite at only 20 years old, will be the soloist in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4.
It's one of the composer’s most striking and original works, and the last of his five solo keyboard concertos that he wrote for his own use as a performer. Though it dates from his “heroic” middle period, it is an extraordinarily intimate and expressive work.
More Beethoven is on the program, and it’s a work that The Philadelphia Orchestra has never before played - Gustav Mahler’s arrangement for string orchestra of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 11, the “Serioso,” one of Beethoven’s most compact works, and an arrangement for strings that affords an opportunity for The Philadelphia Orchestra strings to shine!
Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducts the program, that begins with a Viennese favorite, Johann Strauss, Jr.’s “Tales from the Vienna Woods,” and concludes with a contemporary work by HK Gruber, Charivari, which is a satirical spin-off of another Strauss work, his Perpetuum mobile polka. Scored for a huge orchestra it is by turns biting, humorous, and serious, and at all times a spectacular orchestral showpiece!
During intermission WRTI’s Bliss Michelson speaks backstage with Jan Lisiecki, and Susan Lewis spends some time with Yannick.
Listen to this re-broadcast on Sunday, August 28th from 1 to 3 pm on WRTI 90.1 FM or online at WRTI.org.
Read detailed program notes from the concert.
PROGRAM:
Johann Strauss II – Tales From the Vienna Woods
Beethoven – Piano Concerto No. 4
Jan Lisiecki, piano
INTERMISSION
Beethoven – String Quartet No. 11 (“Serioso”) arr: Gustav Mahler
HK Gruber – Charivari
Strauss - Perpetuum mobile
Yannick Nezet-Seguin, conductor
Gregg Whiteside is producer and host of The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert broadcasts on WRTI 90.1 FM in Philadelphia and streaming online at WRTI.org, every Sunday from 1 to 3 pm.
