Chief conductor Fabio Luisi leads the DR Symphony Orchestra through an evening dedicated to two Viennese composers he counts among his personal favourites: Arnold Schönberg and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
The programme opens with two short masterworks by Schönberg, including his Piano Concerto — composed in California in 1942 yet imbued with a distinctly Viennese waltz character — and his Chamber Symphony No. 2, a work developed over 32 years that reconciles modernist logic with late-Romantic passion. Star pianist Kirill Gerstein is the soloist.
Mozart's final symphony closes the concert with an unbroken, sparkling stream of musical invention, full of joy and ingenuity despite its sophisticated construction. Luisi draws a direct artistic line between Mozart's genius and Schönberg's musical courage.
The two Schönberg works will also be recorded by the DR Symphony Orchestra for Deutsche Grammophon as part of their ongoing cycle of Schönberg's orchestral output.