Concert of the city of Geneva
Sunday
12.02.2023
11:00 — Victoria Hall
programme
Jonathan Nott
conductor
Nathalia Milstein
piano
Piotr Ilyitch Tchaïkovski
Concerto for piano and orchestra No. 1 in B-flat minor op. 23
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major op. 55, 'Eroica'
the music
The evening concert presents two epic works sadly misunderstood at their premieres. Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B minor was rejected by its dedicatee, who considered it fit for the rubbish, but it quickly became a mainstay of the concert & competition repertoire around the world.
We know the anecdote: disappointed by Bonaparte who became Napoleon I, Beethoven tore up the dedication in his honour. From then on, his Eroica Symphony celebrated the greatness of a hypothetical great man while opening the great double doors to Romanticism in music. But how hard it is to be understood as a pioneer! The work was initially deemed to be dull, endless and disjointed...