Víkingur Ólafsson & Mozart 23 / Bartók Concerto for Orchestra

Thomas Adès composed In 2010 a 15-minute-long piece entitled Polaris: Voyage for Orchestra. In the same way that all the other stars appear to rotate around the Pole Star, Thomas Adès has all the instruments rotate around the same melody, introduced one by one from high to low. After a few minutes, the poles are reversed. At the end of the composition, the arrival of a third pole creates a new equilibrium.

Iceland’s famous pianist, Víkingur Ólafsson, is a great fan of new music. He has performed work by countless contemporary composers including Thomas Adès, and put himself on the map with a recording of Philip Glass’ piano works that earned him the nickname ‘the Glenn Gould of Iceland’. However, Víkingur Ólafsson is also an excellent interpreter of more classical repertoire. His last CD, issued in September 2021 by Deutsche Grammophon, focuses on Mozart and his contemporaries. In this concert, he will play Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23.

At the end of his life, Béla Bartók ended up in the United States after fleeing from the Second World War, he suffered for a while from illness and lack of money. His situation improved in 1943 when he was commissioned an orchestral composition, Concerto for Orchestra, maybe his best-known and most accessible work. The paradoxical title of this five-part composition is explained by the soloistic and virtuosic way in which Bartók treats the different instrument sections. There is a particularly important role for percussion. Western European classical and Eastern European folk music flow together in the Concerto for Orchestra to form an all-encompassing composition that brims with a rediscovered joie de vivre at the end.

Hugh Wolff, conductor
Víkingur Ólafsson, piano