The Full Works Concert: Friday 6 February 2015, 8pm

Our celebration of the 175th birthday of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra continues with Rachmaninov's fiendish Piano Concerto No.3 played by Simon Trpceski.

On tonight's Full Works Concert, Catherine Bott presents the third of the RLPO's highly acclaimed recordings of the Rachmaninov Piano Concertos, with Simon Trpceski at the piano.

The concert opens with Ludwig van Beethoven's Egmont Overture. It was written around 1809-10 as the opening piece of the incidental music for a play by Goethe. It tells the story of a 16th-century Dutch nobleman, the Count of Egmont, and in the music - which is in a similar style to the Fifth Symphony which he had completed two years earlier - Beethoven expressed his own political convictions through the exaltation of the heroic sacrifice of a man condemned to death for having taken a stand against oppression. The Overture became an unofficial anthem of the 1956 Hungarian revolution. 

Mozart's Symphony No.34 in C major, known as the 'Salzburg', was written in 1780 and features fanfares and flourishes that are typical of the 'festive symphony' or 'trumpet symphony', which was common in Austrian symphonic writing in C major. This is the first of Mozart's C major symphonies to exhibit this character, but he would revisit the style in his subsequent two works in this key, the 36th and 41st symphonies.

Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No.3 is famously one of the most difficult for pianists. Such virtuosity is demanded of the soloist, it’s breathtaking, and the orchestral players, in particular the brass, flex their muscles ready to thrill you at the work's crisis.

Edvard Grieg 's Holberg Suite opens with a sprightly, energetic Praeludium, followed by a more introspective Sarabande, a rather polite Gavotte, a stately Air and, finally, a boisterous Rigaudon. It was originally composed for piano – an instrument in front of which Grieg was always at home – but was later turned into an orchestral suite by the composer. But we hear the original piano version this evening.


Beethoven: Egmont Overture
Vasily Petrenko conducts the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No.34 in C major
Vasily Petrenko conducts the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Sergei Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No.3 in D minor
Piano: Simon Trpceski
Vassily Petrenko conducts the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Edward Grieg: Holberg Suite
Vasily Petrenko conducts the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Gioachino Rossini: Semiramide - Overture
Vasily Petrenko conducts the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra