© Zani-Casadio
Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini
Julian Rachlin conductor
Yefim Bronfman piano
Nikolaj Rimskij-Korsakov
Prelude from The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya
Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major Op. 58
Pëtr Il’ič Čajkovskij
Symphony No. 4 in F minor Op. 36
It’s not every day that a writer like Philip Roth immortalises a pianist in a novel (The Human Stain), but Bronfman combines exceptional virtuoso technique with an impressive clarity of vision, with which he now tackles the dazzling gentleness of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 4, a score that even Artur Schnabel feared because of the impalpable pianissimo of its opening, which has no parallel in the canon of the repertoire. Tonight’s programme offers it together with two Russian gems: the Prelude from Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh, based on the legend of the city that was made invisible to the invading Tatars by the mists over Lake Svetlyj Yar (an opera often referred to as the ‘Russian Parsifal‘ because of its Wagnerian echoes); and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony no. 4, in which “Fate” ‘knocks’ at the door of the great composer.
