Palace Concerts

Artists

London Symphony Orchestra

Maria João Pires, piano

John Eliot Gardiner, conductor

Program

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Overture Leonore II, Op. 72a (1805)

Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37 (1800)

Symphony No. 4 in B-flat major, Op. 60 (1806)

Beethoven’s Day

The first performance of the London Symphony conducted by John Eliot Gardiner and Maria João Pires at the piano is a Beethovenian program with the virtue of moving on the fringes of popularity. All of Beethoven’s orchestral work has been widely distributed, but even so there is still room to claim that the Overture Leonore II, the one written for the first performances of Fidelio in 1805 (and which for Schumann was “demonic”), works as well in a concert as the much played Leonore III; that the Piano Concerto No. 3 premiered in 1803 is utterly joyful and reflects a clear evolution of his piano literature; and that the Fourth Symphony is a delight from its first to its last bar and it is not a turning back, but rather a mainstay on that two-way path that Beethoven followed in his symphony work.