The 2014 Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert

Every year, as the days grow longer, Austria gets ready for one of the classical calendar’s highlights: the Vienna Philharmonic’s Summer Night Concert. This event, inaugurated in 2004, brings the prestigious ensemble together with some of the world’s most illustrious soloists—in front of an audience that regularly numbers more than 100,000—in the gardens of Vienna’s world-famous Schönbrunn Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In 2014, the marvelous musicians of the Vienna Philharmonic teamed up with renowned German conductor Christoph Eschenbach. Eschenbach is also a celebrated pianist, but on this occasion he leaves the piano pyrotechnics to the prodigious Lang Lang, who takes the stage to perform the virtuosic Burleske, composed by a 21-year-old Richard Strauss in 1885-86. Also on the program are two overtures by Hector Berlioz, including the delightful Roman Carnival, and Liszt's symphonic poem Mazeppa, inspired by Victor Hugo's poem of the same name.

Photo © Richard Schuster