Fatum | Destiny – Beethoven 250
Jan Lisiecki & Jaap van Zweden – Gstaad Festival Orchestra IV

Symphony Concert

Sunday, 21 August 2022
6 pm, Gstaad Festival Tent

It is the culmination of a three-week residency: In addition to its all-important role within the framework of the Gstaad Conducting Academy, the Gstaad Festival Orchestra also presents its own programmes during each year's sonorous stay at the Festival, for this one under the direction of Jaap van Zweden and with two absolute masterpieces of the Romantic period. The programme includes the piano concerto with perhaps the most beautiful slow movement ever composed: Primarily known under the title “Emperor”, the concerto quickly became popular among performers and music lovers alike right after it was written. It is performed by the exceptional Polish-Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki, who, despite his young age, has been an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist since 2011 and most recently recorded the complete Nocturnes by Chopin. During last year's Festival, Lisiecki replaced Hélène Grimaud as the soloist in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 at short notice. The second masterpiece of the evening is Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4, probably the most personal work of the composer as it is closely linked to the reality of his life: The symphony embodies the underlying presence of his new epistolary muse, Nadejda von Meck, to whom he promised to translate his “deepest feelings” into music – feelings between the joy of being alive amidst people who “know how to have fun” and the “implacable fatum”, a destiny that constantly reminds us of ourselves and shows us that “others do not care about [our person]”.