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

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

Pianist Seong-Jin Cho has captivated our audiences with his interpretations of Ravel, Chopin and Beethoven. Now he returns for Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, making for a dream pairing. Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto is 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.

Igor Stravinsky & Richard Strauss

Equally overwhelming is Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements, written during the Second World War. Those turbulent times inspired Stravinsky, who had just emigrated to America, to create a daring collage of unused Hollywood film music, old ideas and new impulses. He wove everything together seamlessly; an irresistible cinematic flow holds the work together. Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier is a homage to old Vienna. And that means waltzes and other dance music, all sparklingly orchestrated.