Symphonic - Abyss of Perfection - Opera Beyond the Walls

Beethoven and Bruckner Concert featuring Bruce Liu (piano) and the Toulon Opera Orchestra (conducted by Victorien Vanoosten).

The most compact, the most dense, and the most somber of the five, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 is the first he wrote for a pianist other than himself after coming to terms with his deafness. The soloist takes the lead first, followed by the orchestra.
The piano imposes a haughty discourse that can take on an elegiac tone or project a conquering energy. In Bayreuth, where Bruckner submitted and presented his Second and Third Symphonies to him, Wagner chose the Third and its introductory theme on the B-flat trumpet—so… Wagnerian! But the work is steeped in the atmosphere of Upper Austria with its polkas and danceable Ländlers. The wild contrasts and the orchestra’s grand tutti passages are magnificent.

Program:
> Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Concerto No. 4, Op. 58
> Anton Bruckner, Symphony No. 3, “Wagner Symphony.”