Igor Stravinski
Apollon Musagète, ballet en 2 tableaux pour orchestre à cordes (1928, révision 1947)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Concerto pour piano et orchestre n°21en ut Majeur KV 467

Hugo Wolf
Penthesilea, poème symphonique d’après Heinrich von Kleist

With the support of Ernst & Young


Once the exuberance of the Firebird years was over in the teens, some twenty years later, the ballet Apollon Musagète, with choreography by Balanchine, sought to free itself from any folklore. Stravinsky substituted the exaltation of contrast in sound volumes of the whole string palette for instrumental colour, for a majestic, hieratic style. As supremely elegant, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 delivers a message of peace that culminates in the nocturnal meditation of its second movement, an Andante in which all Mozartian grace is reproduced by one of today’s princes of the keyboard: the Russian Nikolai Lugansky. Conductor Kazushi Ono and the Orchestra of the Lyons Opera have chosen to end this concert with a rarity: Hugo Wolf’s sole symphonic poem, Penthesilea, a volcanic, staggering work featuring a rich, inventive orchestration that foreshadows the great symphonic frescoes of his friend Gustav Mahler.

Franck Mallet