Kirill Petrenko | Berliner Philharmoniker © Priska Ketterer/Lucerne Festival
Kirill Petrenko | Berliner Philharmoniker © Priska Ketterer/Lucerne Festival
Berlin Philharmonic | Kirill Petrenko

Program

19.30
Max Reger (1873–1916)
Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart, Op. 132
Richard Strauss (1864–1949)
Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), Op. 40

Description

This is a birthday concert: 150 years ago, on 19 March 1873, Max Reger was born. In the 1920s, he was still the most frequently performed contemporary composer in the German-speaking world, but with the triumph of Modernism, his work somewhat fell out of view. That has to change, say the Berlin Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko, and to mark the anniversary they will perform Reger’s Mozart Variations, which show what a master craftsman this composer was, as well as how audacious he could be, since in this work the theme he chose to vary comes from the Piano Sonata in A major, K. 331, where his great idol Mozart himself had varied the same theme. With an orchestra as excellent as the Berlin Philharmonic, this performance promises to be a remarkable musical experience. Ditto when it comes to Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, a work scored for an enormous orchestra, in which the composer elevates himself to heroic status and incorporates quotations from his earlier tone poems. He also portrays his wife Pauline and mocks his adversaries from the music critic profession. At the end, he flees the world and, who knows, perhaps even reaches Paradise …


Event Venue

KKL Luzern, Concert Hall

Kultur- und Kongresszentrum Luzern
Europaplatz 1
CH-6005 Luzern

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    In the KKL Luzern
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