Pastoral Symphony

To mark the beginning of a weekend Symposium on the works of Beethoven, Marios Papadopoulos combines the composer’s most conciliatory piano concerto with his most idyllic symphony. In his Piano Concerto No. 4, Beethoven reimagined the relationship between soloist and orchestra – not with shock and awe, but with gentle conversation and poetic reflection. After Marios plays and directs the concerto from the piano, we hear the symphony in which Beethoven turns away from the great issues of mankind and instead takes his listeners for a restorative walk in the countryside. Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ is both a symphony and a story, and a nature-inspired masterpiece that cannot help but uplift.