Berliner Philharmoniker
Performers
Berliner Philharmoniker
Kirill Petrenko, Chief Conductor
Noah Bendix-Balgley, Violin
Program
ANDREW NORMAN Unstuck
MOZART Violin Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Major, K. 207
KORNGOLD Symphony in F-sharp
Encore:
TRAD. "Yismechu" and "Ot Azoy" (Noah Bendix-Balgley)
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission.At a Glance
This concert presents three dramatically contrasting works from three centuries, two by Viennese composers, one by an American. Mozart’s enchanting Violin Concerto No. 1, written when he was 17, is the first of his concertos, yet is a work of surprising nuance, sophistication, and mastery of 18th-century Classical form. Korngold’s Symphony in F-sharp, completed in 1952, is the only symphony by one of Hollywood’s greatest émigré composers. Korngold’s disciplined opulence came to define the Hollywood sound during its golden era and characterizes his concert works as well. This epic, rarely performed work sounds a bit like Gustav Mahler, a bit like Hollywood, not surprising given that Korngold was the bearer of the Mahler-Strauss mantle before he was forced by the Nazis to immigrate to America. Andrew Norman’s Unstuck, written in 2008 during a struggle with writer’s block and inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, is also full of brilliant orchestral colors, though in a fragmented, collage-like format depicting (in the composer’s words) the orchestra’s attempts “to free itself from these moments of stuckness.”