Symphoniker Hamburg / Pierre-Laurent Aimard / Sylvain Cambreling
Weber: Overture to »Oberon« / Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 2 / Beethoven: Symphony No. 4
Sommerliche Klänge
Carl Maria von Weber composed »Oberon, or the Elf-King’s Oath« for the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden, London. The opera about knights, fairies and harems never became established in the repertoire, but the overture is cherished as one of the finest examples of Weber’s talent as an orchestral composer.
It is followed by Béla Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 2. According to the composer, this piano concerto was intended as a counterpiece to his first: »less difficult for the orchestra and more pleasing in its thematic material«. And indeed, the work really does have a softer, less mysterious surface that invites more virtuosic music-making.
The concert closes with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4: a real summer symphony with a sunny mood. In Beethoven’s day, the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung wrote: »On the whole the work is cheerful, intelligible and very engaging, and is more akin to this master’s justly popular First and Second Symphonies than to his Fifth and Sixth.« They were right – this Fourth Symphony really has very little in common with the subsequent »Fate« Symphony. Its appeal lies in its classical, joyful carefreeness.
Performers
Symphoniker Hamburg
Pierre-Laurent Aimard piano
conductor Sylvain Cambreling
Programme
Carl Maria von Weber
Ouvertüre zu »Oberon« J 306
Béla Bartók
Konzert für Klavier und Orchester Nr. 2 Sz 95
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 4 in B-flat major, Op. 60
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