Paul Lewis & Mozart 25 - Franck Symphony in D

Ruslan and Lyudmila by Mikhail Glinka is a fascinating fairy-tale opera that can be considered the Russian counterpart of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. The story of knights, dragons, an evil sorcerer and a princess that needs saving is based on a poem by Pushkin, Russia’s most famous poet. He would normally have written the libretto as well, but was killed prematurely in a duel. The overture of Ruslan and Lyudmila, a sequence of fast-paced dances and an orchestral masterpiece, is known to be particularly demanding for the double basses.

The Piano Concerto No. 25 is Mozart’s longest, most difficult and most symphonic piano concerto. He composed the piece in Vienna in 1786: just after the opera Le nozze di Figaro and about the same time as the Prague Symphony. This piano concerto was greatly admired by the twentieth-century composer Olivier Messiaen, who praised the sovereign majesty of the piece. “It reminds me of the most exalted religious architecture: Egyptian sphinxes, Mexican step-pyramids, Greek temples and Gothic cathedrals.” Top British pianist Paul Lewis brilliantly brings these creations to life.

The composer César Franck, who later became a naturalised Frenchman, was born in Liège in 1822, precisely 200 years ago. The three-movement Symphony in D, composed a few years before his death in 1888, is his best-known and most frequently performed work. French imagination and clarity are combined in this magisterial symphony with a German, post-Wagnerian harmonic language. The fact that César Franck was a master organist can be heard in the magnificent counterpoint and exquisite orchestration. The second movement caused a scandal at the premiere due to the striking use of the alto oboe. In the third and final movement, all themes from the previous movements return, “not as mere quotations, but as elements from which something new emerges” (César Franck).

Roberto González-Monjas, conductor
Paul Lewis, piano