Guest appearance in Stockholm

Beethoven’s Fifth fascinates listeners just as much today as it did on day one. Everyone knows the opening motif of the symphony, perhaps the most famous ever in the history of European music, and the end of the symphony with its outbreak “per aspera ad astra” into the final victory leaves no one untouched. Beethoven’s Fifth is what might be called a “smash hit”. The same cannot be said of Dvořák’s only piano concerto. It rarely appears on concert programmes, and many pianists prefer to give the concerto a wide berth, perhaps because it lacks an expansive, sensational virtuoso solo cadenza for pianistic self-expression. Not so Francesco Piemontesi and Michael Sanderling, who both trust in the unique romantic qualities of this concerto. And lovers of Dvořák’s music will be amazed at the almost decadent wealth of orchestral colours – a real discovery! Subtle borrowings from Dvořák’s role models Beethoven, Chopin, Wagner and Brahms are unmistakable, blending seamlessly and unobtrusively into the work’s atmospheric Bohemian sound.