From the New World

From the New World. Not only Antonin Dvorak's most famous 9th Symphony was created in the New World, but also Serge Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto. And at the beginning of the concert, the overture to the opera "Raphael" by Rachmaninoff's teacher Anton Arensky. "That guy has more ideas than all of us put together. From his scraps, anyone else could piece together the main themes." These admiring words from the esteemed mouth of Johannes Brahms were directed at his friend Antonín Dvořák, whose "Ninth" is among the most well-known and beloved symphonies of all time – and of course, it is full of ideas and inspirations. This is no surprise, as it processes, in a way, influences from two worlds – one can hear the composer's Bohemian homeland just as clearly as the musical impressions "from the New World," where Dvořák was at the time of composition: Serge Rachmaninoff also set out for America, but for him, it was not a career leap, but an involuntary exile following the Russian Revolution. His highly virtuosic second piano concerto, which we have the privilege of performing with the fantastic Rachmaninoff specialist Bernd Glemser, is his most famous work and rightly one of the most performed piano concertos ever. "It is full of poetry, beauty, warmth; wonderfully orchestrated and of healthy, captivating creative power," wrote the contemporary press enthusiastically. We will open our evening with the overture to the opera "Raphael" from the pen of Rachmaninoff's teacher Anton Arensky. This work, which is hardly ever heard in this country, is definitely worth getting to know; the opera was created in the same year as Dvořák's 9th Symphony and also ventures into a completely different world with its theme, the life of the Italian painter Raphael, but this time not into a "new" world, but into the past world of the Italian High Renaissance.