Beethoven’s Brilliance: Paul Lewis and Concerto Budapest Symphony Orchestra
Tchaikovsky Francesca da Rimini
Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3
Liszt Les Preludes
Beethoven Symphony No. 5
Andras Keller conductor
Paul Lewis piano
Acclaimed British pianist Paul Lewis takes centre stage in this programme of Romantic classics. One of the world’s greatest interpreters of the central European classical repertoire, he’s particularly famed for his performances of Beethoven, notably his landmark recordings of the composer’s piano sonatas. He’s the ideal soloist, then for Beethoven’s 3rd Piano Concerto, written when his star was rising rapidly and whose passion and grandeur announced it as the first of his mature concertos.
For this performance, Paul’s joined by the Concerto Budapest Symphony Orchestra. With a distinguished history going back over a century, it’s one of Hungary’s leading musical lights and this dramatic programme is the perfect showcase for its vibrant sound, opening with fire and fury as Tchaikovsky summons up a whirling vision of Dante’s hell-bound heroine, Francesca da Rimini. Two other Romantic classics complete the programme. Franz Liszt characterised his symphonic poem, Les Preludes, as a stormy existential struggle, and it shares some of the same elemental potency as Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. With fiercely concentrated energy throughout, this fate-fuelled masterpiece blazes its way to an explosive finale where Beethoven provides extra firepower by adding a piccolo, contrabassoon and trombones to the symphony orchestra for the first time.