Klaus Mäkelä conducts Rachmaninov and Strauss — With Mikhail Pletnev

Two perennial crowd pleasers find worthy interpreters in maestro Klaus Mäkelä, piano virtuoso Mikhail Pletnev, and the sterling Verbier Festival Orchestra, live at the 30th anniversary edition of the Verbier Festival! The program's first half is devoted to Rachmaninov's entrancing Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, a work that rehabilitated the composer's international reputation and found a permanent place in the concert repertoire (plus regular features in television and movies, and pop culture immortality in Eric Carmen's "All By Myself") for its flabbergasting virtuosic passages, soaring emotion, and instantly memorable melodies. After the break, the VFO and Mäkelä perform a high-altitude version of Richard Strauss's awe-inspiring tone poem An Alpine Symphony, a rapturously beautiful musical portrait of a heroic climb to the top of the Alps to take in a view much like the unforgettable one granted to Verbier Festival attendees, both in person and virtual.

Photo © Marco Borggreve
medici.tv’s broadcasts of the Verbier Festival's 30th anniversary edition are produced with the support of Madame Aline Foriel-Destezet.
Klaus Mäkelä appears courtesy of Decca Classics.