Wellington Chamber Orchestra (WCO): Mozart, Brahms, Debussy

Kenneth Young conducts the Wellington Chamber Orchestra and piano soloist Emma Sayers in a performance of:

Debussy: Petite Suite
Mozart Piano Concerto No. 25 in C Major: KV 503
Brahms Symphony No. 2, Op 73

Debussy's Petite Suite began as a piece for piano, four hands, and was later arranged for full orchestra by Henri Būsser, a slightly younger French composer who was noted for his orchestration skills. In its original form for piano, Petite Suite was first performed on February 2, 1889 by Debussy himself. The piece is designed to entertain and delight.

Mozart completed his Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K. 503 on December 4, 1786, alongside the Prague Symphony, K.504. Although two more concertos (K.537 and K.595) would later follow, this work is the last of the twelve great piano concertos written in Vienna between 1784 and 1786. The concerto follows the Classical convention of three movements: Allegro maestoso; Andante; Allegretto. Though Mozart performed it on several occasions, it was not performed again in Vienna until after his death, and it only gained acceptance in the standard repertoire in the later part of the twentieth century, now being regarded as one of his greatest works.

Brahms' Symphony No. 2 was composed in the summer of 1877 during a visit to the Austrian province of Carinthia. Its gestation was brief in comparison with the fifteen or so years it took Brahms to complete his First Symphony. Where the First had been laboriously hewn from granite, the Second seemed to bloom as spontaneously as a spring blossom in a forest glade. Its genial, outgoing character, among other factors, sets it apart from Brahms's three other symphonies; this is the one understandably regarded as his "pastoral" symphony, and it is surely the most directly endearing of the four.

Online tickets: Adults $15; Secondary students or younger are free.

Door sales: Adults $20; Concessions $15 (Tertiary students, Seniors, unwaged); Secondary students or younger: free.

Event listed by Wellington Chamber Orchestra

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