Beethoven's "Eroica"

The program opens with a musical amuse-bouche, Michael Tilson Thomas’s playful Agnegram, and follows with Ravel’s enchanting Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. Commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein, a concert pianist who had lost his right arm in the First World War, this work is more than a novelty; it’s fascinating to watch and utterly delightful to hear, a heady mix of American blues and jazz in concerto form. Hear it performed by an acclaimed pianist who has played it frequently, each time revealing new discoveries in the work: “His crystalline performance was dynamically alert, rhythmically incisive, and sensitively integrated with the delicate textures of Ravel’s bravura orchestration” (Musical America). 

Capping the program is Beethoven’s mighty “Eroica” Symphony, a paean to the heroic in all of us.