Yearning for Russia / Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen

Wed 13.12.
8.00 p.m.
Bremen
·Sendesaal

Yearning for Russia

8th First Night Subscription Concert

Works by Wagner, Prokofjev and Brahms

»I love playing with The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie,« exceptional Portuguese pianist Maria Joäo Pires reveals. »Here, everything is very special: you sense that the musicians are totally engrossed in the music and how much fun they are having.« Like conductor Trevor Pinnock, Pires has guested regularly in Bremen for many years. On many occasions, they have performed together, most recently in 2016 with Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto. This time, Maria Joäo Pires is playing two Mozart works, including the Concerto for Two Pianos, which Mozart composed for himself and his sister, presumably still under the fresh impressions of his trip to Paris. Like the so-called ›Jeunehomme‹ Concerto, it acts as a hinge and opens the door to Mozart’s subsequent major works.

Programme

- Richard Wagner (1813–1883)
- From Siegfried WWV 86 C: Forest Murmurs
- Sergej Prokofiev (1891–1953)
- Violin concerto No. 2 in G minor op. 63
- Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)
- Symphony No. 4 in E minor op. 98

Conductor

Paavo Järvi

Estonian conductor and Grammy Award winner Paavo Järvi has been Artistic Director of The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, his only German orchestra, since 2004. One highlight of the collaboration were the celebrated concerts of the Beethoven cycle, which received critical acclaim worldwide. Järvi received numerous awards for the recordings, including the ›Echo Klassik‹ as ›Conductor of the Year‹ and the prestigious ›Annual Prize of the German Record Critics‹.

Following the Beethoven project, he and the orchestra tackled the symphonic works of Schumann and Brahms, which received similarly enthusiastic reviews. Paavo Järvi is also Principal Conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Artistic Advisor to the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and the Järvi Summer Festival in Pärnu, Estonia, and since 2019/20 Artistic Director of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich. He regularly makes appearances as guest conductor with orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic orchestras, the Staatskappelle Dresden and the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago and the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra. In 2015, he was named ›Artist of the Year‹ by the renowned British magazine Gramophone and the French magazine Diapason. In 2019, he received the ›Opus Klassik‹ as ›Conductor of the Year‹.

Violin

Viktoria Mullova

Viktoria Mullova studied at the Central Music School of Moscow and the Moscow Conservatoire. Her extraordinary talent captured international attention when she won first prize at the 1980 Sibelius Competition in Helsinki and the Gold Medal at the Tchaikovsky Competition in 1982 which was followed, in 1983, by her dramatic and much publicized defection to the West. She has since appeared with most of the world’s greatest orchestras and conductors and at the major international festivals.

Her curiosity spans the breadth of musical development from baroque and classical right up to the most contemporary influences from the world of fusion and experimental music. This rich musical diversity has been celebrated in several high-profile residences, including London’s Southbank, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, Musikfest Bremen and more. Viktoria has a great affinity with Bach and his work makes up a large part of her recording catalogue. Her recording of Bach’s solo sonatas and partitas represents a significant milestone in Viktoria’s personal journey into this music.

Mullova’s extensive discography has attracted many prestigious awards. She either plays on her ›Jules Falk‹ 1723 Stradivarius or a Guadagnini violin.

Conductor