The Verbier Festival is considered as one of the most important European festivals. Every July, the greatest names of classical music gather during two weeks, among the wonderful landscape of the Swiss Alps for an exceptional concert series.
Khatia Buniatchvili
The festival gives the artists the opportunity to perform original programmes with other musicians that they admire and with whom they have never had the opportunity to play.
For five consecutive seasons, medici.tv has been the place for classical music lovers around the world to enjoy the spectacular array of top artists who perform at the Verbier Festival, which this summer takes place July 15 – 31. As Martin T:son Engstroem, the festival’s founder and executive director, says:
“Verbier is a tiny Swiss mountain village, far from any big towns, but we can connect with the global internet community and share our wonderful programs with a worldwide audience. People have followed our concerts from some mind-boggling places. Hats off to medici!”
More than 20 events from the 18th annual Verbier festival are streamed live as well as being available on demand for free. Here are some piano related highlights you may not want to miss:
All the concerts are available online for free (account registration needed) the day after their broadcast on medici.tv as well as on medici TV’s iPhone and iPad applications until September 30th.
Chinese pianist, 22-year-old Yuja Wang thrilled international audiences with her opening performance alongside conductor Claudio Abbado at the Lucerne Festival on August 12.
“Last year, when Claudio Abbado saw me playing Franz Liszt´s Sonata on French television, he compared me to talented female pianist Martha Argerich and then sent me an invitation to cooperate. In March this year we had our first cooperation and this is the second one”, Wang explained.
Usually, musicians who work with Abbado are well-known masters such as Maurizio Pollini. However this year Abbado made an exception. Yuja is an exclusive recording artist for Deutsche Grammophon. For her debut recording, titled Sonatas & Etudes, released in the spring of 2009, she presented a program of sonatas including Chopin´s “Funeral March”, Liszt´s Sonata in B minor, Scriabin´s Sonata no. 2, and etudes by Ligeti.
Wang continues: “The piece was chosen by Abbado and I think it is quite suitable for an opening concert. It is a vivid and exciting work in which the soloist and orchestra play their own strong roles during the performance. It demonstrates the charm of the orchestra while revealing the delicate sound of the piano. When we were on the stage, there was a wonderful interaction between the orchestra and Abbado”.
Of the five piano concertos written by Prokofiev, the Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26, has garnered the greatest popularity and critical acclaim. The concerto radiates a crisp vitality that testifies to Prokofiev’s inventive prowess in punctuating lyrical passages with witty dissonances, while maintaining a balanced partnership between the soloist and orchestra. Unlike the examples of piano concertos set by many of Prokofiev’s Romantic forebears, the orchestra rises above subsidiary accompaniment to play a very active part in this work.
Prokofiev began work on the concerto as early as 1913 when he wrote a theme for variations which he then set aside. Although he revisited the sketches in 1916-17, he did not fully devote himself to the project until 1921 when he was spending the summer in Brittany. Prokofiev himself played the solo part at the premiere on 16 December 1921 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Frederick Stock. The work did not gain immediate popularity and had to wait until 1922 to be confirmed in the 20th century canon, after Serge Koussevitzky conducted a lavishly praised performance in Paris. The first Soviet performance was on 22 March 1925, by Samuil Feinberg, with the Orchestra of the Theatre of the Revolution under Konstantin Saradzhev.
Prokofiev himself made the first recording of the Piano Concerto No. 3 in 1932 with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Piero Coppola. The recording was made at Abbey Road Studios in London and is the only recording that exists of Prokofiev performing one of his own piano concertos.
1st movement:
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Interview
Watch the 2013 Verbier Festival concerts in free replay on medici.tv!
