Lorenzo Viotti & Lucas Debargue: Szymanowski and Rachmaninoff

Lucas Debargue plays Szymanowski

Completely unexpected, the young, unknown French pianist Lucas Debargue won fourth prize in 2015 at the prestigious Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. Since then he has been conquering the world stages. He was already a guest with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra in 2017, but he has never worked with his peer Lorenzo Viotti before. As an advocate of lesser-known compositions, Debargue will this time play the Fourth Symphony, 'concertante' by the Polish composer Szymanowski.

Symphonies of Szymanowski and Rachmaninoff

That the successful composer Szymanowski was also a good pianist is evident from the success of his Fourth Symphony, 'concertante', a cross between a piano concerto and a symphony. Although he dedicated the piece to his friend, the renowned pianist Arthur Rubinstein, Szymanowski himself played the premieres in various European cities. Rubinstein would promote the work worldwide after Szymanowski died in 1937. The Russian piano virtuoso and composer Rachmaninoff became famous mainly thanks to his piano concertos, but his impressive Symphony No. 2 is also a crowd favourite.