Robert Schumann Piano Concerto in A minor op. 54
Anton Bruckner Symphony no. 5 in B-flat major
Conductor Claudio Abbado / Piano Mitsuko Uchida / LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA including MAHLER CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 

This year, the annual tour of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA, with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra as its core, takes the ensemble to Baden-Baden, Paris and London. The rehearsal period and the first concert took place in Baden-Baden, the second performance in Paris. London is the third and final stop on the tour. In the course of four days, two symphonic programmes will be performed as well as a chamber concert by members of the LFO and a club concert with the Mahler Chamber Soloists in the series LIMELIGHT - Classical Music in a Rock'n'Roll Setting.

In tonight’s concert, Mitsuko Uchida performs with the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA for the first time. The pianist, born in Japan, began her international career in the 1970s and 1980s in London. Schumann’s Piano Concerto is followed on the programme by Bruckner’s Symphony no.5. The piece was already performed in Lucerne this summer and received with enthusiastic praise: "Where else does one get to hear such extremely soft, many-layered dynamics in the piano range?" remarked the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on the interpretation of Bruckner's Fifth Symphony. "Where else such a strong but always structured fortissimo (in which the strings are never covered by the brass, and the winds, too, consistently add their colouring)?"

For Claudio Abbado, a lifelong dream was fulfilled with the founding of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA in 2003: Members of the world's great symphony orchestras, soloists and chamber musicians - all of them friends of the Italian conductor - come together each summer to form a combined ensemble and create unforgettable musical moments. Abbado named the Mahler Chamber Orchestra as the core of this unique orchestra. The performances of the LFO have garnered much attention in the classical music world; many of them have been broadcast on television and are now available on DVD - most recently, in January 2011, a recording of Mahler's Ninth Symphony from last summer was released. Previous tours have brought the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA to Rome, Vienna and Madrid as well as to New York, Tokyo and Beijing.