Seattle Symphony Orchestra Music Director Gerard Schwarz will be joined by distinguished pianist Vladimir Feltsman for a week of music featuring the works of Johannes Brahms.
On Thursday, November 8, at 7:30 p.m. and Friday, November 9, at 8 p.m., the program will include Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 and Symphony No. 2. On Saturday, November 10, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, November 11, at 2 p.m., the Orchestra will perform Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2 and Symphony No. 4.
An artist of immense range and insight, Vladimir Feltsman is recognized as one of the most imaginative and constantly interesting musicians of our time. A regular guest soloist with every leading orchestra in the United States, Feltsman appears on the most prestigious concert series and music festivals the world over. Performance appearances include The National Radio Orchestra of France; the London, Milwaukee, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Seattle and Singapore symphonies; the NHK, Sapporo and Yomuiri Nippon orchestras; and the St. Petersburg and Rotterdam philharmonics.
In addition to an extensive recording career, Feltsman has served as Artistic Director of Masterpieces of the Russian Underground, a panorama of Russian contemporary music through the survey of piano and chamber works of 14 different composers—from Shostakovich to the present day—presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in January 2003. Born in Moscow in 1952, Mr. Feltsman debuted with the Moscow Philharmonic at age 11. In 1969, he entered the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory of Music to study piano under the guidance of Professor Jacob Flier. He also studied conducting at both the Moscow and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) Conservatories. Feltsman, who became a U.S. citizen in 1995, lives in upstate New York.
Johannes Brahms wrote his Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor early in his career and in the wake of two shattering experiences. One was the demise of his friend and mentor Robert Schumann, the other was his first hearing of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Both events prompted the sternly powerful tone of the concerto's opening movement. Darkness then gives way to light. The central Adagio brings music of almost religious serenity, and the finale is vigorous in a way that recalls Beethoven.
In contrast to the somber character of the First Piano Concerto's opening movement, Brahms' Symphony No. 2 in D major is a predominantly genial composition. Its initial movement features, among its melodic ideas, a variant of the famous "Brahms lullaby," while the ensuing Adagio and the Allegretto grazioso third movement present a play of sunlight and shadow. Brahms closes with a spirited, and ultimately exultant, finale.
Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major is widely considered the composer's supreme achievement and stands as one of the most imposing of all compositions for piano and orchestra. That stature is partly due to its grandeur of scale and tone. At four movements, this concerto has the dimensions of a Romantic symphony. Moreover, its opening movement conveys an unmistakably heroic character.
Like the Second Piano Concerto, the Symphony No. 4 in E minor is a product of Brahms' maturity and is one of the masterpieces of the orchestral literature. Nowhere did the composer achieve a more potent blend of Romantic expression—heard as soaring melodic lines and deeply yearning harmonies—and rigorous Classical form, including the remarkable set of continuous variations on a terse theme in the finale. -- www.seattlesymphony.org
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