Concertgebouw Orchestra & Seong-Jin Cho: Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1

Seong-Jin Cho & Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1

Conductor Joana Mallwitz and pianist Seong-Jin Cho forma dream team when it comes to Tchaikovsky’s intensely romantic Piano Concerto No. 1, a quintessentially Slavic work, with grand gestures and melodies running through it like deep furrows. It contains quotations from Ukrainian folk music and, oddly enough, a snippet of a French cabaret song. It is overwhelming, compelling and highly virtuosic.

Strauss's Rosenkavalier

Hindemith’s downright fascinating Symphony 'Mathis der Maler' from 1934, a preliminary study for an opera about a painter who refuses to let those in power restrict his artistic freedom. It was naturally a subject of great relevance during the rise of Nazism, and continues to be today. Hindemith’s sound world is beyond comparison: it is characterised by a neoclassical style with sharp edges. His melodies also hint at Hindemith’s background as a cafe and street musician. We might well describe Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier as neoclassical in style, too, as it is a homage to old Vienna. And that means waltzes and other dance music, all sparklingly orchestrated.