By David Amos
SAN DIEGO –It is not too frequently that we get to hear all five of the Beethoven Piano Concertos, in concert, in a mini-festival format, as performed by a single pianist. This rare opportunity will present itself on January 29, 30, and 31, 2012. When done in this manner, this has been a memorable experience for both performers and audiences.
Featured soloist will be the award winning pianist Daniel Wnukowski, coming to us fromVienna, who will play with the Tifereth Israel Community Orchestra all five of Beethoven’s monumental piano concertos.
On the second night of these concerts, the orchestra will also play the composer’s rarely performed Ballet Music to The Creatures of Prometheus. Prometheus was the son of Titan, brother to Kronos, who was the father of Zeus; Prometheus translates as “forethought”, and he was the wisest among the Titan Gods. His stories and deeds are found in both Greek and Roman mythologies, the best known version is that Prometheus created man and later stole fire from Mount Olympus to redeem humanity.
Prometheus was one of Beethoven’s heroes. He admired the mythology to the extent of not only writing music for this ballet, but also using the theme from the finale in a set of piano variations, and in a more familiar venue, in the last movement of his Symphony No. 3, “The Eroica”.
Beethoven composed the five piano concertos between 1795 and 1812. This was a turbulent time in the arts, in politics, and in self expression in literature. It was also a time when the newly invented modern piano started to replace the harpsichord as the standard keyboard instrument, with its ability to create greater nuances and expressiveness through changes in the louds and softs it could produce, (hence its original name, “forte-piano”). It was also capable of balancing effectively against the full symphony orchestra, which was also experiencing growth in number of players and additional instruments. Composers started to experiment with this new instrument, and this was one of the breakthroughs of classical music into the 19th Century and the Romantic Period in music.
In Beethoven’s iconic five concertos, one can easily see the composer’s development s an artist. While in the first two look back to the styles of Haydn and Mozart, the last three display Beethoven’s growing maturity and his remarkable personal statements.
Daniel Wnukowski is a Polish-Canadian pianist from Windsor,Ontario. He studied at the ChopinAcademy in Warsaw, at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore with Leon Fleisher, and in London at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 2006 he was awarded a scholarship to study at the International Piano Academy at Lake Cuomo, Switzerland.
His winning numerous performance awards and prizes has enabled him to perform all over Europe, Asia, North and South America in many prestigious concert halls including the National Philharmonic in Warsaw, The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Salle Pleyel in Paris, the Tokyo University of the Arts, and the Academia di Santa Cecilia in Rome. He has performed with the Polish Radio Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, Windsor Symphony, and many other orchestras, including our own Tifereth Israel Orchestra a few seasons ago.
Daniel and his wife Marta, an accomplished violist, reside inVienna.
Here are the contents of each concert. The first will be in Chula Vista, at the First United Methodist Church (1200 East H Street,Chula Vista, California 91910), and the second and third programs at Tifereth Israel Synagogue, located at 6001 Cowles Mountain Blvd., San Diego, 92119
Sunday, January 29, 2012, 4:00 p.m., at Chula Vista’s First United MethodistChurch: The Piano Concertos numbers 1 and 3. This program is admission-free.
Monday, January 30, 2012, 7:30 p.m. at Tifereth Israel: The Piano Concerto No. 4, and the ballet music to The Creatures of Prometheus.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012, 7:30 p.m. at Tifereth Israel: The Piano Concertos numbers 2 and 5.
For more information, individual or group tickets, reservations, directions, or a season brochure, call the Synagogue, or you can buy your tickets online at www.tiferethisrael.com/TICO.
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Amos is conductor of the Tifereth Israel Community Orchestra and has guest conducted professional orchestras around the world. He may be contacted at david.amos@sdjewishworld.com