Tschaikowski & Beethoven

The Tonkunstler settle in with the sumptuous Polonaise from «Eugen Onegin» – thus opening the first subscription concert of their new residency in the Stadttheater Baden and their first full concert season in the Stadttheater Wiener Neustadt. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is also present with his brilliant Violin Concerto, presented by Amira Abouzahra, at just 19 years old. The melancholy of the middle movement may pull at the heartstrings, but on either side of it the work offers eminently virtuosic music full of esprit and élan. Which applies no less to the Symphony No. 2 by Ludwig van Beethoven – a loyal summer guest in Baden, who was once erroneously arrested by the police in Wiener Neustadt. The chronological closeness to the Heiligenstadt Testament, in which Beethoven grapples with his progressive hearing loss, can for the most part be heard only indirectly in the symphony. Instead, one is more likely to feel that the work’s lustre and somewhat exaggerated humour were intended to free its creator of his more melancholy thoughts. The young Korean conductor Samuel Seungwon Lee has picked a thrilling programme for his Tonkunstler debut!