photo: Marco Borggreve

Antonín Dvořák’s sole piano concerto is bookended by two of his popular works for full orchestra: this is the programme on offer from András Keller, who has invited one of the most important pianists of our time to serve as the soloist for the 1876 concerto. Pierre-Laurent Aimard is an intimate acquaintance of the Hungarian music scene, and the attraction is mutual: one only has to think of the French artist’s decades of dedication to the works of Ligeti and Kurtág. Prior to his performance of the Piano Concerto in G minor, we will hear the most popular of Dvořák’s ‘Nature, Life and Love’ trilogy of overtures: the Carnival Overture, which depicts life in all its variety and colour. Just as this composition whisks the listener away into a merry tumult, the iconic work of Dvořák’s career, his Symphony No. 9 ‘From the New World’ also removes us from our usual surroundings: in this case, to America, where the already famous composer taught at a conservatory for three years during the 1890s. Although he was working in New York, it is not the bustling metropolis that his last symphony evokes, but rather the atmosphere of American folklore, naturally mixed with the Czech melodies that make Dvořák’s musical world so unmistakable.