Ludwig van Beethoven Piano concerto no. 3 in C minor op. 37
Fazil Say Silk Road
Periklis Koukos In Memoriam
Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony no. 7 in A major op. 92
Conductor Constantinos Carydis / Piano Fazil Say

MCO Debut in Rimini

After opening the season at Cologne’s Philharmonic Hall, the orchestra will head to the Adriatic to play a debut concert in Rimini at the Sagra Musicale Malatestiana. The MCO will repeat the program from Cologne, which had its premiere at the Athens Festival in July of 2010, with works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Fazil Say, and Periklis Koukos. The evening will be led by conductor Constantinos Carydis, with pianist and composer Fazil Say as soloist. The program is dedicated to both classical European music (with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C-minor and his Symphony No. 7 in A-Major) and contemporary music (Say’s Silk Road as well as Koukos’ In Memoriam).

Founded in 1950, Sagra Malatestiana celebrates its 60th birthday this year, making it one of the oldest concert organizers in Italy. From the beginning, its guest artists were drawn from among the great musicians of the international concert stage: this year, besides the MCO, groups such as the Bavarian State Opera Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig and the Orchestra Filarmonica of La Scala will appear. The various programs include symphonies, baroque music and jazz, with a focus over the last several years on an ongoing Bach cycle. The concerts take place around the city in theaters, churches, museums and Rimini’s convention center.

Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto was first played in Vienna in April of 1803. The composer took up an impulse from Mozart and developed it several steps further: the piano becomes an equal partner in dialogue with the orchestra, the instrumental groupings are differentiated from movement to movement, and finally at the end of the last movement Beethoven dramatically changes the key. Exactly ten years later, the composer conducted his own Symphony No. 7 in A Major. In composing symphonies he had already established a new order of magnitude; in the seventh, he primarily resumes that which he had already begun in the sixth. But a new strength in subjective expression, a new vehemence appears, with which Beethoven forms a symphonic „I“ comparable to the first-person narrative voice in literature.

Fazil Say is at home artistically on both sides of the Bosphorus, since he brings the traditions of European classical music to his native Turkey but also shares the music of his homeland – in all its variety – with audiences across the world. His concerto for piano and chamber orchestra, Silk Road, takes the listener on a journey along the legendary route of the title, the ancient commercial highway between China and Europe. The four movements, like the stations of a caravan, are linked to one another by a Chinese gong. They tell of the philosophy of Tibet, the dances of India, and the clashes of disparate religions in Mesopotamia, until at last reaching, in the final movement, Say’s home of Anatolia, the „mother of the earth.“ The piece quotes copiously from the musical traditions of the stops along the Silk Road, with Arabic folklore incorporated along with Indian dance and Anatolian songs.

As one of Greece’s most significant contemporary composers as well as artistic director of the national conservatory, Periklis Koukos plays a prominent role in Greek musical life. The catalog of his works encompasses opera, theater music, orchestral pieces and chamber music.

05 SEP / SUN 18:00 / PHILHARMONIE KÖLN >>MORE