Herbert Blomstedt & Maria João Pires

Programme

Two revered artists with over 170 years’ experience between them join the Philharmonia for this landmark event in London’s orchestral calendar.

Conductor Herbert Blomstedt and pianist Maria João Pires both bring a lifetime’s insight and an infectious joy and vitality to their performances. This is a rare opportunity to hear them perform live with the Philharmonia, in the repertoire for which they are best known.

In Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23, a lithe and graceful first movement, a deeply expressive central Adagio, and an effervescent finale illuminate the different facets of Pires’s musical personality. Even if you’ve heard this concerto many times before, “Pires makes you listen with new ears” (Bachtrack) – and if it’s your first time, you’re in the best possible hands.

Herbert Blomstedt has spent a significant part of his 94 years immersed in the music of Bruckner. Allow him to be your guide through this elemental, almost sacred work, which one writer described as ‘like walking around a cathedral, and taking in each aspect of it”. By turns serene, majestic, terrifying and passionate, Bruckner 7 richly deserves its place in many a list of the greatest symphonies of all time.