KZN Philharmonic Orchestra 2023 SPRING Symphony Season Concert 3
Thu Nov 2, 19:00 - Thu Nov 2, 21:00
Playhouse Opera Theatre
ABOUT
Concert 3: 2 November
Conductor: Daniel Boico
Soloist: Nikita Mndoyants, Piano
Programme:
Schubert: Rosamunde overture
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No 3 in C minor, Op.37
Bruch: Symphony No 3 in E major, Op.51
Daniel Boico opens the third concert of the season with Franz Schubert’s joyous Rosamunde Overture. The work was originally part of the incidental music to Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern (Rosamunde, Princess of Cyprus), a play by Helmina von Chézy, which premiered in Vienna's Theater an der Wien on 20 December 1823. A superb showcase for American virtuoso, Nikita Mndoyants, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto in C minor was first performed in April 1803, with the composer as soloist. During that same performance, the Second Symphony and the gorgeous oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives were also premiered. An historic night. Musical commentators have noted that Beethoven’s statuesque concerto evokes much of the ethos of another work in the same key, Mozart’s Piano Concerto no 24. Indeed the first primary theme of Beethoven’s piece recalls the turbulence underlying the Mozart masterpiece. Beethoven dedicated his composition to Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia as a token of the esteem he had for his royal admirer’s own pianism.
The German Romantic composer Max Bruch (1838 – 1920) composed more than 200 works. However he is best known today for a handful of works, among them his three violin concertos, the first of which is a prominent staple of the standard violin repertoire. The two other works of Bruch that still are widely played, were written for solo instrument with orchestra: the Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra; and the Kol Nidrei for cello and orchestra (subtitled ‘Adagio on Hebrew Melodies for Violoncello and Orchestra’), which begins and ends with the solo cello's setting of the Kol Nidre (‘All Vows ... ) incantation that opens the Jewish Yom Kippur service. Another showpiece is the bravura concerto for two pianos and orchestra. Of his three symphonies, the third contains the most distinctive German Romantic melodic writing, though each is sumptuously orchestrated.