Work: The Wooden Prince, Op.13: Ballet suite

After Simon Rattle blazed into the Philharmonie last week with big hits like Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, and (somewhat less of a big hit) Lutosławski’s Second Symphony, Alan Gilbert, normally to be found on a podium in front of the New York Philharmonic, returned with the same band on Thursday to play lesser-known pieces in the repertoire: Janáček’s violin

Béla Bartók was a composer of extremes. An avid collector of Hungarian folk songs, he published arrangements of these simple tunes alongside his own more ascetic music. The detailed programme notes for the Philharmonia’s Bartók series entitled ‘Infernal Dance’ divide his music into three categories: the banned, the rarely played and the fully approved.

L’Orchestre de Paris s’adjoignait mercredi la violoniste Patricia Kopatchinskaja pour un concert consacré à deux maîtres de la musique hongroise : Béla Bartók et Péter Eötvös, au pupitre de direction ce soir.