Christoph Eschenbach, artistic director of the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic is a figure well-known to the Wrocław audience. This time, he will appear with the Austrian pianist Rudolf Buchbinder. Buchbinder enjoys international fame, has been performing for over half a century, and his repertoire is huge – it includes works from the Baroque to the contemporary. A special place in it is occupied by the music of Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven performances and recordings that have brought the artist the greatest recognition. At the NFM, Buchbinder will present his interpretation of the last piano concerto by this composer, while Eschenbach will conduct an early symphony by the last of the Viennese Classicists.
Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, composed in 1809, is commonly known under the title “Emperor”, yet this name comes not from the composer, but from the publisher, Johann Baptist Cramer. However, it turned out to accurately reflect the character of this catchy composition, full of energy, brilliance and majesty. The solo part gives the virtuoso performing it excellent opportunities to showcase their skills. Beethoven was a composer who loved using new, unusual sound solutions, and he did the same in this case. The third movement contains a fragment in which the piano is accompanied only by the timpani.
Symphony No. 2 in D major was written seven years before the Fifth Piano Concerto, in 1802. Although the composer dedicated it to his patron, Prince Karl Alois Lichnowsky, it is a work in which he began to move away from court culture. This is symbolised, for example, by the fact that the court dance, the minuet, usually placed as the second section of the symphony, was replaced with a scherzo. The word means “joke” in Italian. A light and cheerful mood also prevails in the finale of the composition. Although The Second is now part of the symphonic canon, not all critics were thrilled with it after its premiere. One of them complained about the length of the piece, comparing it to… a wounded dragon, bleeding and convulsing, but unable to die!