Czech Philharmonic • Season Opening Concert
The opening of the season is a gala event and deserves something special. The combination of works by Beethoven and Strauss with extra-musical associations meets this requirement, and with wonderful interpretations by the marvellous violinist Lisa Batiashvili and the Czech Philharmonic with Semyon Bychkov, these will be a truly special evenings.
Programme
Ludwig van Beethoven
Violin Concerto D major, Op. 61 (42')
— Intermission —
Richard Strauss
An Alpine Symphony, Op. 64 (47')
Performers
Lisa Batiashvili
violin
“Batiashvili’s fearless playing is so tonally rich and technically immaculate.” (The Guardian)
Lisa Batiashvili, the Georgian-born German violinist, is praised by audiences and fellow musicians for her virtuosity. An award winning artist, she has developed long-standing relationships with the world’s leading orchestras, conductors and musicians.
Batiashvili is also the Artistic Director of Audi Sommerkonzerte, Ingolstadt. For the 2019 festival – ‘Fantastique’ – Batiashvili curated a diverse programme featuring artists such as Daniel Harding with Bayerische Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Gautier Capuçon, Les Vents Francais and Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. For the 2020 festival, Batiashvili will design a programme to celebrate Audi’s anniversary year.
In the 2019/2020 season Batiashvili performs with, among others, the Philadelphia Orchestra / Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Berlin Staatskapelle / Daniel Barenboim, London Symphony Orchestra / Sir Simon Rattle, Orchestre de Paris / Lahav Shani, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig / Andris Nelsons, and Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich / Paavo Järvi.
Recording exclusively for Deutsche Grammophon, Lisa’s latest album – ‘Visions of Prokofiev’ (Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Yannick Nézet-Séguin) – won an Opus Klassik Award and was shortlisted for the 2018 Gramophone Awards. Earlier recordings include the concertos of Tchaikovsky and Sibelius (Staatskapelle Berlin / Daniel Barenboim), Brahms (Staatskapelle Dresden / Christian Thielemann), and Shostakovich No. 1 (Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks / Esa-Pekka Salonen).
Bastiashvili has had DVD releases of live performances with the Berliner Philharmoniker / Yannick Nézet-Séguin (Bartók Violin Concerto No.1) and with Gautier Capuçon, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and Christian Thielemann (Brahm’s Concerto for Violin and Cello).
She has won several awards: the MIDEM Classical Award, the Choc de lʼannée, the Accademia Musicale Chigiana International Prize, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festivalʼs Leonard Bernstein Award and the Beethoven-Ring. Batiashvili was named Musical America’s Instrumentalist of the Year in 2015, was nominated as Gramophone’s Artist of the Year in 2017, and in 2018 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Sibelius Academy (University of Arts, Helsinki).
Lisa lives in Munich and plays a Joseph Guarneri “del Gesù” from 1739, generously loaned by a private collector.
For further information please visit the homepage http://lisabatiashvili.com/.
Semyon Bychkov conductor
Czech Philharmonic
Student Programme
Dates and tickets
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“There is an interesting connection between Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Strauss’s Alpine Symphony. The concerto is musically very closely tied to nature, and of course even just the title of the Alpine Symphony clearly suggests a work about nature. But that is actually a mistake because Strauss only uses nature as a metaphor for the life’s journey of a person from birth to death and for what happens to him along the way. So the Alpine Symphony is not about going through the forest or what you hear in the mountains. Everything in it operates as a story of the experiencing of human life. It is an absolutely existential work”, explains Maestro Semyon Bychkov.
The cameras in the auditorium record the first opening concert for a live broadcast on the Czech TV art channel and the second opening concert for a live broadcast on TV Mezzo Live HD.
