ZYKLUS YURY REVICH - Classic Revolution - BEETHOVEN

Beethoven is regarded as one of the great revolutionaries in the history of music. His innovative dialectical forms of composition and sound were considered revolutionary and greatly expanded the classical framework of symphonies, sonatas and string quartets. Beethoven’s works were epoch-making in terms of their length, musical contrasts, innovation and expressiveness, and revolutionised musical style in a groundbreaking way.

The »Spring Sonata« beautifully illustrates Beethoven’s ability to transition from his characteristic dramatic tension into a world of luminous, lyrical dialogues between the violin and the piano. By introducing a playful scherzo movement consisting of just four notes, Beethoven imbued this sonata with a youthful exuberance that perfectly reflects the awakening of a new season.

Robert Lehrbaumer’s piano transcription of Beethoven’s imposing »Choral Fantasy«, Opus 80, is inspired by Liszt’s piano arrangements of Beethoven’s symphonies. Performed with spectacular pianistic virtuosity using both hands on the piano, this arrangement brings to life what Beethoven originally conceived in his most large-scale orchestral work (for solo piano, six vocal soloists, choir and orchestra). - The performance has already been acclaimed in many venues both at home and abroad – now it can be experienced in Vienna for the first time.

In »Jazz 111«, Yury Revich draws on the rhythmic and harmonic boldness of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 32, Op. 111 – which, from today’s perspective, reveals astonishing parallels with later jazz idioms – and translates it into a contemporary musical language. »Beethoven ReCycled« offers a successful neoclassical composition based on unpublished fragments from Beethoven’s oeuvre. The »Chamber Poem for Franz Liszt« is a tribute to Franz Liszt, in which Revich reimagines Liszt’s poetic and virtuosic soundscape from a contemporary perspective and blends it with his own musical language. Liszt’s wonderfully soulful »Sonnet 104« enchants the listener.

The »Kreutzer Sonata« forms the monumental conclusion to the programme. Originally dedicated to George Bridgetower and later rededicated to the renowned violinist and composer Rudolphe Kreutzer, it captivates with its dazzling, cadenza-like first movement and its generally concertante, virtuosic style. In addition to its extraordinary technical and concertante dimensions, it captivates above all through its dramatic intensity, its stark emotional contrasts and the uncompromising dialogue between violin and piano, interpreted by Yury Revich and Robert Lehrbaumer.​