The Raymond James Beethoven Festival is a unique set of six concerts that trace the musical journey of the career and life of Ludwig van Beethoven. The Festival presents all nine symphonies in chronological order, a first for Vancouver audiences. The presentation of Beethoven’s symphonies in order is the backbone of this festival, the concept that drives it and makes it work. Hearing all nine symphonies in order over the course of eleven days gives audiences the most immediate insight into the complex life and career of this most important of composers. Along the way, audiences will be able to appreciate the breadth and depth of Beethoven’s writings through the presentation of two of his concertos – performed by two of the greatest musicians of any description on the planet: Lang Lang performs Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.1 on March 28th, and Anne-Sophie Mutter performs the Violin Concerto on April 4th. All six concerts are conducted by VSO Music Director Maestro Bramwell Tovey.

The world’s most famous and dynamic pianist, Lang Lang performs to sold out houses worldwide, and has been a pioneer throughout his brief but stellar career. Lang Lang has forged a special relationship with Vancouver audiences through his concerto and recital performances over the years, rocking the Orpheum each and every time. In the Raymond James Beethoven Festival, he tackles Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.1 – which was in fact the third concerto for piano that Beethoven wrote, entitled No.1 only after an accident of publishing times. The result is that the work is a stronger, more assured work than the second or third concerto – a highly personal statement by Beethoven that is bold, ingenious, indebted to the Classical masters of the past, but looking forward to grand Romanticism. A perfect vehicle for Lang Lang, a perfect complement to Beethoven’s First Symphony also on this program, and the perfect beginning for the Raymond James Beethoven Festival.

Anne-Sophie Mutter has for over thirty years been unanimously recognized as one history’s finest violin virtuosos. Her recording with Herbert von Karajan of the Beethoven Violin Concerto is iconic, the standard by which all other recordings and performances are measured. Ms. Mutter will perform this same concerto with which she is so inextricably linked, in her first appearance in Vancouver in eighteen years. Beethoven’s Violin Concerto is often called the greatest concerto for violin and orchestra ever written – for a reason.

Eschewing the obviousness of virtuosic fireworks, Beethoven strove for peace and serenity throughout, allowing the solo violin to soar and to sing, truly exploring the uttermost limits of the instrument’s expressive possibilities. The work is the first important large-scale work for violin and orchestra, setting a standard that has proven difficult, if not impossible, to match. Lyrical brilliance, radiant confidence in its own musicality, ethereal and ecstatic, hearing this work in the hands of a master like Anne-Sophie Mutter is a transcendent musical experience. Fittingly, the concerto is paired with the Pastoral Sixth Symphony in the Festival’s fourth concert. -- www.vancouversymphony.ca