Schiff begins the program at the piano bench, performing the solo role in Haydn's Keyboard Concerto No. 11 in D Major. The best known and most performed of Haydn's keyboard concertos, it commonly draws comparisons to Mozart for the clarity of its structure and harmonic subtleties. The COE under maestro Schiff continue with Bartók's Divertimento for String Orchestra, whose title is slightly misleading: under its apparent simplicity and levity, the work—written in a few weeks in 1939, just before the composer fled Hungary to the United States—conceals Bartók's fears in a world on the brink of war. Concluding the program is Haydn's 104th and final symphony, composed in 1795 and—though he wrote eleven other symphonies in the English capital—often called the "London" Symphony.

Photo: Sir András Schiff © Yutaka Suzuki

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