Discussion with Daniel Raiskin
The season's final major symphonic concert is dedicated to two giants–Beethoven and Brahms. The program features Beethoven's Egmont Overture and his Piano Concerto No. 5, “Emperor,” performed by pianist Alexei Gorlatch, and finally Johannes Brahms's First Symphony–a work the composer refined for more than twenty years and which is often symbolically referred to as “Beethoven's Tenth.”
In a pre-concert interview, the chief conductor of the Slovak Philharmonic recalls his inaugural concert in 2020, when Brahms's First Symphony was performed in a hall without an audience, in the midst of the pandemic. The conversation also touches on Beethoven's lifelong resistance to tyranny, which shines through in the music for Egmont, as well as how both programs will be performed soon during the orchestra's tour of Japan.