Opening Night at Symphony
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Symphony Hall, Boston, MA
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Rudolf Buchbinder, piano
Aaron Diehl Trio (Ellington)
BEETHOVEN Consecration of the House Overture
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 23 in A, K.488
Intermission
ELLINGTON New World A-Coming, for piano and orchestra
ELLINGTON/STRAYHORN Tonk, for piano four-hands
Carlos SIMON Four Black American Dances
From Austria to America: The program begins with Beethoven’s lively and festive Consecration of the House Overture, commissioned for the city of Vienna. Austrian soloist Rudolf Buchbinder then plays Mozart’s light and lyrical Piano Concerto No. 23, written during the composer’s years in Vienna. Aaron Diehl and his trio bring to life the American master Duke Ellington’s tone poem New World A-Coming. In closing, Carlos Simon, an Atlanta-raised composer, brings us deep into his community’s history with the motley and exuberant Four Black American Dances.
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Performance Details
Oct 7, 2023, 6:00pm EDT
Featuring
Program Notes & Works
Overture, The Consecration of the House
The first piece ever performed by the BSO in October 1881, the Consecration of the House Overture is one of only three orchestral works Beethoven composed in his final decade.
Piano Concerto No. 23 in A, K.488
The chamber music-like Concerto No. 23 in A is one of Mozart’s most lyrical and, in the central Adagio, poignant works. Mozart created the model of the piano concerto as we know it, writing a dozen highly varied pieces to perform for Vienna audiences of the 1780s.
New World A-Coming, for piano and orchestra
Ellington's New World A-Coming was informed by, and takes its title from, a 1943 social history of Harlem by the prominent journalist Roi Ottley: New World A-Coming: Inside Black America.
Tonk, for piano four-hands
Strayhorn wrote Tonk, named after Ellington’s favorite card game, to highlight Ellington as a pianist. It was transformed into a piano duet by 1946, when Ellington and Strayhorn began performing it as a high-energy showstopper.
Four Black American Dances
Carlos Simon's BSO-commissioned Four Black American Dances celebrates the composer’s heritage and the presence of dance in Black culture as a medium for ritual, worship, celebration, and social connectivity.
