Classic virtuosos to highlight Seoul stage

Finnish conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste / Courtesy of SPO

Virsaladze will be performing in Seoul for the first time

By Yun Suh-young

Georgian pianist Eliso Virsaladze

Classical music virtuosos will highlight the Seoul stage this month with performances of Schumann, Sibelius, Mozart, Mahler and Beethoven.

Finnish conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Georgian pianist Eliso Virsaladze will be performing this week and next, respectively, followed by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Harding the following week. This is the first Seoul performance for the 75-year-old Virsaladze.

On Feb. 10 and 11, conductor Saraste will take the helm with violist Brett Dean and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra in his fourth concert with the orchestra following his performances in 2011, 2013 and 2015.

The principal conductor of WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne will open the program with Sibelius, En Saga, Op. 9, a mystical piece spanning 20 minutes portraying the scenery of northern Europe. Saraste twice released the complete symphonies of Sibelius with Finland's Radio Symphony Orchestra and received rave reviews for his detailed and exact depictions of En Saga. He will also be leading Beethoven's Symphony No. 4 in B-flat Major, Op. 60.

Saraste has worked with several noted orchestras such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra as principal guest conductor and as music director of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra.

Australian violist, composer and conductor Brett Dean, who had a long career at the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, will be performing his own piece, Viola Concerto, for the first time in Asia.

The programs for the two days are the same and the concerts will be held at the Lotte Concert Hall, Friday, and Seoul Arts Center, Saturday.

Celebrated pianist Virsaladze will be performing in Seoul for the first time on Feb. 16. Despite her many performances in Japan, she has never had the chance to perform in Korea.

She is known to be a Schumann specialist since her prize-winning performance at the age of 24 at the International Robert Schumann Piano and Voice Competition in 1966. Her Schumann performance was touted as the "best interpretation of Schumann of the century" by Svyatoslav Teofilovich Rikhter, and her albums of his work have been highly received by critics.

She is an interpreter of 18th and 19th century piano works from Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and Schumann as well as wide ranging repertoir from modern Soviet and Russian composers. She was awarded the "People's Artist of the Georgian SSR" in 1971, and of the "People's Artist of the USSR" in 1989.

At the age of 75, Virsaladze is still active, and since the late 1970s she has partnered with Natalia Gutman whom she has performed with for over 40 years.

Virsaladze will be opening the Seoul performance with Robert Schumann's Arabeske for piano in C major, Op.18, Schubert's Piano Sonata No.13 in A Major, D.664 (Op.120), and Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No.2 in d minor, Op.14. After the intermission more Schumann will follow. Schumann's Fantasiestücke for Piano, Op.12, is up first followed by Franz Liszt's Widmung, S.566 (LW A133) (arranged for Piano after R. Schumann), and Rhapsodie Espagnole for Piano, S.254 (LW A195). Her performance will be held at the Kumho Art Hall as part of its exclusive series.

Virsaladze has been teaching at Moscow Conservatory since 1967 and at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich since 1995. Her students include renowned pianists Boris Berezovsky, Alexei Volodin, as well as Koreans, Park Jong-hwa and Kim Tae-hyung.

On Feb. 20, the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) will take the stage under the helm of principal guest conductor Daniel Harding. This is the orchestra's 10th visit to Seoul since its debut in 1964 and Daniel Harding's third with the LSO since 2014.

What is special about this year's tour is that the program features an exact replication of the regular concert at the London Barbican Centre. The regular repertoire for the LSO's 2016/17 season such as Mozart's Overture for The Marriage of Figaro, Mark-Anthony Turnage's Hakan, for trumpet and orchestra, and Mahler's Symphony No.4 in G Major will be performed.