14 THE OBC AND A RACHMANINOFF FESTIVAL

Repertoire

Concert Friday:

• RACHMANINOFF: Concertos for Piano and Orchestra Nos. 1 and 2

Concert Saturday:

• RACHMANINOFF: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

• RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Sheherazade

Concert Sunday:

• RACHMANINOFF: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 3

• RACHMANINOFF: Symphonic Dances

Artists

ORQUESTRA SIMFÒNICA DE BARCELONA NACIONAL DE CATALUNYA (OBC)
Pablo González, conductor
HJ Lim, piano

Program

Exceptionally, the OBC presents three different concerts in one single weekend, a great challenge for the orchestra and the soloist HJ Lim, and a real musical feast for the audience.Rachmaninoff is the last composer who embodies the paradigm started by Liszt, the virtuoso pianist-composer who plays and popularizes his own works. The four works for piano and orchestra are pieces of great difficulty, not only for their technical challenges, or the strength and endurance that the composer himself possessed to play them, but also for the expressive intensity that they demand from the interpreter. Conceived in the image and likeness of his favourite concerto –that of Edvard Grieg– Rachmaninoff wrote the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 1 in f sharp minor at eighteen. In his later works, and still more learned knowledge of orchestration, his pianism reached unparalleled levels of complexity. This is the case of the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 in c minor, which he also premiered personally and that led him to the summit of the European composition; its beautiful Adagio sostenuto, popularized by the film Brief Encounter by David Lean contributed especially to this. In turn, the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 3 in d minor has been considered one of the most difficult for a pianist to face. After achieving so much experience, Rachmaninoff wanted to pay special tribute to another great composer and performer: hence, the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. But the Russian composer was also an excellent writer for orchestra. This is shown well by the Symphonic Dances, a veritable compendium of Russian folklore.