Emanuel Ax
Piano giant Emanuel Ax has frequently been a guest with the Concertgebouw Orchestra and demonstrates his immense versatility time and again. Especially for him, another living legend, film music composer John Williams (including Star Wars , Jaws , Jurassic Park , ET , Harry Potter ), wrote his Piano Concerto . Instead of the typical 'Spielberg sound,' here you hear above all Williams' love for jazz in a surprisingly modern guise. So this time, no film with Williams, but almost with Tchaikovsky. His Francesca da Rimini is a true mini-drama: an adulterous couple is punished by hellish gusts of wind.
Petr Popelka conducts the Concertgebouw Orchestra
Czech conductor Petr Popelka makes his debut with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. He is the current chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and displays a special flair for Central European repertoire. This promises to be a treat with the Sixth Symphony by his compatriot Dvořák, a hidden gem last performed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra over twenty years ago. It was with his Sixth that Dvořák achieved international breakthrough as a symphonist. It is music like a friendly landscape in the spring sun, full of the melodic discoveries that his colleague Brahms was so envious of.