NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Jewgenij Kissin / Thomas Hengelbrock

Erstwhile child prodigy Jewgenij Kissin, born 1971, is fêted all over the world for his intuitive, sensitive and intensely virtuoso playing. The Russian’s Hamburg appearances are rare and tickets are highly sought-after. This evening he plays Bartók’s Second Piano Concerto, a work justly feared by pianists. First performed in 1933, its Neo-Classical tenor, gripping rhythms and what the composer himself called »pleasant thematic material« appeal to a wide variety of tastes.

Thomas Hengelbrock and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra have already performed the Hamburg version of Mahler’s First Symphony to great acclaim at the Hamburg International Music Festival, on tour in Asia and on CD. For their concerts in the Elbphilharmonie they have chosen the better-known, later version of the score. Mahler’s First already contains everything that makes his music so irresistible: the deeply emotional spectrum ranges from euphoric to downcast; folk songs, marches, Ländler, fugues and sonatas rub shoulders in the score as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and the listener can revel in enchanting orchestral sounds from delicate lustre to grandiose, victorious tutti.