Bronfman, Bartók, and Brahms
Bronfman, Bartók, and Brahms
Thursday October 01, 2009
8:00  PM
Verizon Hall

The Philadelphia Orchestra

Charles Dutoit - Conductor

Yefim Bronfman - Piano

Program:

BARTÓK - The Miraculous Mandarin (complete)

BRAHMS - Piano Concerto No. 2

Description:

Bartók set the European theater world on edge with the controversial The Miraculous Mandarin, a brilliantly-hued expressionist nightmare in which a wealthy Mandarin visits a prostitute only to be suffocated, stabbed, and hanged by thieves and left to die. But in this ballet-pantomime, heard in its entirety here, the Mandarin cannot die until the young lady embraces him one last time. The music is as shocking today as it was at its scandalous 1926 Cologne premiere--after which it was banned. Maestro Dutoit has balanced Bartók's modernist crackle with Brahms's symphonic Second Piano Concerto, a product of the composer's ripest maturity. Up for the challenge is pianist Yefim Bronfman, whose power and poetry have made him into one of the most sought-after artists of our time.