Program

THOMAS ADÈS: Three studies from Couperin (2006) 14 min.
W. A. MOZART: Piano Concerto no. 24 in C minor, KV 491 (1786) 30 min.
RICHARD STRAUSS: Metamorphosen (1945) 28 min.

Using three points of reference – from François Couperin to Richard Strauss – we can trace a path through the idea of transformation. Richard Strauss’ Metamorphosen, one of the composer’s last works – written in the final months of World War II – is an elegy “to the end of the most terrible period in human history”. Strauss, using an intimate and personal language and an orchestral deployment focused on a group of strings, develops to infinity a set of minimal melodic ideas, some of them taken from the funeral march of Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 is without a doubt one of the leading works of the author’s latter years, a high point of the classical style filled with tragic intensity.

Thomas Adès, L’Auditori’s guest composer for this season, presents a particularly bright and polychromatic interpretation of François Couperin’s music based on three short pieces for harpsichord, orchestrated for an unusual instrument ensemble that reveals an intricate and fascinating universe of sounds.

Performers

Sebastian Knauer, piano
Joseph Bastian, conductor
Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and National Orchestra of Catalonia (OBC)