Closing Concert of the 77th Artistic Season

The season finale concert will be a rendezvous with the great symphonists whose works have transformed the history of music. The Overture to the opera The Magic Flute -Mozart's final opera-opens with impressive chords. For the first time, we hear trombones from the brilliant classical composer in the brass section, an addition to the symphony orchestra that Beethoven would later permanently incorporate.

Beethoven's last and most famous Piano Concerto No. 5 is also full of innovations. It does not begin with an orchestral introduction but with a single chord from the orchestra, immediately followed by a cadenza (a virtuosic passage for the instrument without accompaniment) for the piano, revealing a myriad of ideas and themes that are developed throughout the first movement of the piece.

Beethoven's experiments with orchestral sound and his focus on the individual's emotions as a central theme in music served as an inspiration for Mahler. For Mahler, music became a tool for addressing existential dilemmas and seeking answers to questions about the meaning of life and existence. Such fundamental issues required maximalist solutions. Mahler's Symphony No. 1, known as the Titan, introduces an orchestra expanded to its utmost limits, unlike anything seen before. From the first measure, the listener encounters innovative orchestration, monumental sound, and intense emotions unparalleled in previous music. As Mahler himself once said: A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.

Excerpt from Beethoven's Piano Concerto Nr. 5 performed by Igor Levit and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Paavo Järvi:

Mahler's Symphony No. 1 performed by Staatskapelle Dresden under Fabio Luisi: