Programme

Hans Werner Henze
Sonatina 1947 [version for orchestra by Hans Abrahamsen, world premiere]

Hans Abrahamsen
Left, alone. Piano concerto for the left hand

Interval

Richard Strauss
Sinfonia domestica, op. 53

Franz Welser-Möst, Conductor

Alexandre Tharaud, Piano

Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks

Four years ago Hans Abrahamsen’s Let Me Tell You, with Barbara Hannigan, unleashed storms of applause. Now our programme features another work by this Danish composer: Left Alone, a piano concerto for the left hand. Abrahamsen, who suffers from muscular degradation in his right hand, wrote it for himself, taking Ravel’s concerto as his model, and dedicated it to this evening’s soloist, Alexandre Tharaud. Before then we will hear his memorial orchestration of Hans Werner Henze’s Sonatina 1947 for piano. At the rostrum is Franz Welser-Möst, musical director of the Cleveland Orchestra since 2002, who will also treat us to Richard Strauss’s Sinfonia domestica, a readily decipherable portrait in notes of the composer’s own family.