Repertoire

Joan Guinjoan: Fantasia del trencadís (1994) 9′
Frédéric Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21 (1830) 31′
Sergei Rakhmaninoff: Symphonic Dances, Op. 45 (1940) 35′

ARTISTS

Barcelona Symphony Orchestra (OBC
Yulianna Avdeeva, piano
Stephanie Childress, conductor

Programme

For Fantasia del trencadís, the piece that opens this concert, Joan Guinjoan took fragments of his opera Gaudí, written for the Cultural Olympiad in 1992.

The next piece on the programme is Frédéric Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 2. Despite the numbering, this is the composer’s first concerto, which he wrote and also performed in Warsaw the same year he left his country, never again to return. He also left behind the lover who had inspired the wonderful slow movement. 

Pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff never returned to his country either. Fleeing from the revolution that was sweeping the Russian Empire, he settled in the US, where he had a distinguished career. The Symphonic Dances that close the programme are, in large part, a nostalgic recollection of his homeland. The three movements evoke Russian ecclesiastical music and some themes drawn from earlier works of his own.