Magic at the grand piano

The Italian composer Luciano Berio (1925-2003) helped set the tone for post-war art music, not least with his groundbreaking electronic works. At the end of the eighties, he took on Franz Schubert’s unfinished symphony, the one he had begun but never completed due to his failing health. Schubert died in 1828, only 31 years old.

In Rendering, which is now being performed for the first time in Umeå, we hear Berio carefully fill in the gaps and the unfinished parts, with motifs and quotations that he has found in the more solid parts of the symphony.

There will also be an Umeå premiere for Jennifer Higdon’s (born 1962) work Peachtree street, which opens the concert. It is the third and independent part of her orchestral work City Scape, in which she paints a vivid picture of her childhood city of Atlanta with music. In other words, this is also a declaration of love.

The friend who assisted Beethoven at the grand piano at the premiere of his third piano concerto, in 1803, could tell us afterwards that several of the pages were completely empty. The fact that he eventually finished writing the score is to be regarded as an act of love to us future music lovers. This evening we hear it interpreted by the French pianist, Lise de la Salle (born 1988), who has toured internationally since the age of twelve. The orchestra is led by Norrlandsoperan’s chief conductor, Eduardo Strausser.

“Lise de la Salle played so well that the audience sometimes had to remind themselves to breathe. The tension didn’t let up until she took her hands off the grand piano.” – Washington Post