Palace Concerts

Artists

Orchestre des Champs-Elysées

Philippe Herreweghe, conductor

Program

I

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Symphony No. 41 in C major, K 551 «Jupiter» (1788)

II

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 55 «Eroica» (1803-1804)

Classics in Period Colours

After making a name for himself as a choral conductor, Philippe Herreweghe, one of the greatest Bach’s interpreters of our time, made the leap to symphony music decades ago, and today alternates the podiums of major international orchestras with that of his own period ensemble, the Orchestre des Champs Elysées, with which he comes to the Festival for the first time. And he does it with a program of indisputable masterpieces, since Beethoven’s Eroica and Mozart’s Jupiter can be counted among two of the most extraordinary symphonies ever composed. Written in the prodigious summer of 1788 (together with the 39 and the 40), the 41 marked the final moment for Mozart as a symphonist (although he didn’t know it yet), while the Third meant for Beethoven the crucial turning point of his career, the one that launched him into a form of expression that would revolutionize the orchestral world of his time.