Beethoven

Manfred Honeck’s 10th Anniversary celebration continues with a premiere by former Composer of the Year Sir James MacMillan, an orchestration of his beautiful Larghetto for Orchestra, originally for a cappella choir.  Following a recent performance of Schumann’s Cello Concerto in San Francisco, critic Joshua Kosman wrote of Alisa Weilerstein: “This was a luminous account of a work that has the potential to be problematic, and Weilerstein didn’t so much finesse those issues as face them head-on in an explosive show of artistic strength.” Audiences are surely in for a treat when Weilerstein brings the concerto to Pittsburgh. Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony take center stage to bring the performance to a powerful close with Beethoven’s famous “Eroica” Symphony, which will be recorded for future commercial release.  Springing to life from two brusque opening chords, this revolutionary symphony has been described as “the greatest single step made by an individual in the history of the symphony.”