SKALKOTTAS YEAR
The Athens Philharmonia Orchestra and Byron Fidetzis bring together Arnold Schoenberg the teacher and his pupils Nikos Skalkottas and Anton Webern.
Vienna, 1908: Webern, about to graduate from Schoenberg’s composition class, chooses to turn to the passacaglia, a pre-classical form of variations, thus creating a
work of unsurpassable compositional and orchestrational perfection.
Skalkottas has returned to interwar Athens, where he composes, in 1935, an expressive Concertino for Two Pianos, with superb orchestral colours and dreamy harmonic moods.
Two years later, Schoenberg, self-exiled in New York, invests Brahms’ masterly Piano Quartet in G minor with symphonic dimensions.
A rare opportunity to hear three fine works by representatives of the Second Viennese School. The Beata Pincetic and Christos Sakellaridis duo, with a 14-year European career, are collaborating with the orchestra in this interesting concert.
– Anton Webern: Passacaglia, Op. 1
– Nikos Skalkottas: Concertino for Two Pianos
– Franz Schmidt: Intermezzo (Czardas), from the opera ‘Notre Dame’
– Johannes Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25
(Orchestrated by Arnold Schoenberg)
Piano for Two (Beata Pincetic & Christos Sakellaridis)
The Athens Philharmonia Orchestra
Conducted by Byron Fidetzis
Co-produced by the Athens Philharmonia Orchestra and the Athens Concert Hall