Pull up a chair and sit back to watch one of the world's foremost conductors work her magic with the magnifique Orchestre de Paris in their season opener, live from the Philharmonie de Paris! In an electrifying program that begins with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Maestra Marin Alsop will be joined on stage by the dizzyingly talented Khatia Buniatishvili. Who better than these two artists in a class of their own to perform this masterpiece? The work’s virtuosic melodic lines perfectly complement its harmonic structure, at times carrying an almost Mozartian atmosphere while still exhibiting clear signs of the innovation to come in Beethoven's later work.
The evening's second half will be dedicated to Shostakovich’s monumental Fifth Symphony, a brilliant sonic testament to the charged atmosphere in the Soviet Union in the interwar period. Through tumult and triumph, the work never fails to move and excite; its jubilant conclusion is the perfect punctuation mark on an epic night of music!
Photo: Khatia Buniatishvili © Esther Haase / Sony
Verbier Festival 2011