Mainly Mozart Presents The "Linz" Symphony

Pianist and conductor Christian Zacharias will lead Seattle Symphony in a program that will include Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat major, Schubert's Deutsche Tänze and Mozart's "Linz" Symphony on Thursday, March 8, at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, March 10, at 8 p.m.

Christian Zacharias has been the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne since 2000. He has served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Göteborgs Symfoniker since 2002. Since his early studies with Irene Slavin and Vlado Perlemuter in Paris, Zacharias has gone on to win numerous awards, including Prizewinner in the Geneva (1969) and Van Cliburn (1973) competitions; First Prize in the Ravel Competition in Paris (1975); and the Classical Artist of the Year award at the Midem Classical Awards (2007). He has conducted many of the world's best orchestras and most recently presented recitals at the Klavier Festival Ruhr, Festival Internacional Santander, Schubertiade, Ludwigburger Schlossfestspiele and the Festival International Piano aux Jacobins. He has collaborated with the Alban Berg and Guarneri quartets, as well as with Heinrich Schiff and Frank Peter Zimmermann.

Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat major was written in 1785 in an attempt to woo back a fickle Viennese audience who had been puzzled by his music's recent turbulent and dark emotion. Thus, the piece begins as a sunlit musical journey and ends with an upbeat rondo. Yet, it is the middle Andante movement that is the emotional heart of this concerto, filled with melancholy and despair that reveals Mozart at his most introspective.

Schubert's Deutsche Tänze for solo piano express the lighter-than-air sentimentality of early 19th-century Vienna. Discovered only in 1930, these six German dances enchanted arch-serialist Anton Webern, who recast these miniatures for chamber orchestra, as performed in this program.

Mozart's Symphony No. 36, "Linz," was written in just five days as a tribute to Count Thun, who hosted Mozart and his wife in the city of Linz. Such compositional alacrity testifies to Mozart's modus operandi: he tended to compose in his head, and then write down the finished score as if taking dictation. No doubt he had already been at work internally on the "Linz" before arriving at the city gates.

Single tickets are from $15 to $64. -- www.seattlesymphony.org