“Fate knocks at the door” in the most famous symphony ever written.
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At the end of the Doctor Atomic Symphony, John Adams gives us powerful but sombre music. In the original opera it accompanies a John Donne sonnet: “Batter my heart, three-person’d God”. It’s music for a scientist in awe and fear of what he’s done, a man struggling with conscience.
Respite comes in the form of Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto, the music that Liszt said was “of a perfection almost ideal… now radiant with light, now full of tender pathos.”
The second half of the concert begins with the most famous four notes in the world, the notes that Beethoven is supposed to have said were like Fate knocking at the door. The emotion, the awe and the struggle couldn’t be more intense, and no matter how well you know the Fifth Symphony, this will be your chance to hear it anew.
ADAMS Doctor Atomic Symphony AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
CHOPIN Piano Concerto No.2
BEETHOVEN Symphony No.5
David Robertson conductor
Garrick Ohlsson piano
Pre-concert talk by conductor David Robertson in the Northern Foyer, 45 minutes before each performance.
AUDIO PLAYER LISTING
Tracks 1 and 2 – CHOPIN Piano Concerto No.2
Jorge Bolet, piano, with Montreal Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutoit
DECCA 475 8046
Tracks 3 and 4 – BEETHOVEN Symphony No.5
Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 429 0392
Audio kindly supplied by Universal Music
Currently available from iTunes:
‘Ultimate Chopin’
Beethoven