Hough plays Beethoven

Britain's Stephen Hough is among the most renowned and versatile pianists of the present day. He has recorded more than 60 discs and mopped up prizes, including eight Grammy awards. Hough is Artist-in-Association with the Iceland Symphony for the 2022-2023 season and will appear twice with the Orchestra in Eldborg Hall before setting out with the ISO on a tour of the UK.

At this first concert with the Orchestra, Hough plays Beethoven's powerful and dramatic Piano Concerto no. 3. His interpretation of this masterpiece has been described by the London Times as “thrilling and moving”. The programme begins with an appealing yet little-known overture by Christoph Willibald Gluck, a pioneer of Classical music, opera in particular. His opera Alceste, premiered in Vienna in 1767, was considered exotic at the time and influenced composers as varied as Mozart and Berlioz.

The latter half of the programme brings together fire and the open sea in Lithuanian composer Raminta Šerkšnytė's Fires / Ugnys, which has been highly praised and widely performed. The two-movement work depicts the various faces of fire and the powers released in a sea of fire and explosion. Šerkšnytė wrote the piece as a sort of prelude to Beethoven's Symphony no. 5. It was premiered by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Mariss Jansons. One of Debussy's most masterful orchestral works, La mer is often characterised as a symphony about the sea, the wind, and the waves. It provides a canvas for the orchestra to show all of its artistic brilliance.