Zubin Mehta conducts concertos by Vivaldi, Mozart, and Beethoven — With Khatia Buniatishvili, Ram Oren...
Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
Thank you for your understanding.
Cast
Program notes
Vivaldi, Mozart, and Beethoven serve up an evening of glittering virtuosity and transcendent melody in this unusual, all-concerto program. Filmed at Tel Aviv’s Mann Auditorium in 2015, Zubin Mehta leads the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra as they accompany three very different 18th-century concertos performed respectively by trumpeters Ram Oren and Yigal Meltzer, clarinetist Ron Selka, and pianist Khatia Buniatishvili.
First comes Vivaldi’s Concerto for 2 Trumpets in C Major, RV 537, a delightful work originally intended to highlight the particular virtuosity of 18th-century trumpeters: unlike modern trumpets, their instruments had no valves or holes, and so they relied instead upon a supple embouchure and expert mastery of the harmonic series. Written for his friend, the virtuoso clarinetist Anton Stadler, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major K. 622 was also originally composed for a different kind of instrument: a basset clarinet, championed by Stadler, whose range extends down to low C. The evening culminates in Beethoven’s high-spirited and Mozartean Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, composed in 1795 and premiered that same year in Vienna with Beethoven himself as soloist.