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(Canceled) Pictures at an Exhibition with Mälkki

Fri / Apr 23, 2021 - 11:00AM

The LA Phil’s brilliant Principal Guest Conductor leads Mussorgsky’s classic Pictures.

Canceled

Program

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About this Performance

Due to the continuing COVID-19 crisis, all LA Phil-presented concerts at Walt Disney Concert Hall have been canceled through June 9, 2021. 

This event has been canceled. 

  • We have moved all 2020/21 subscriptions into the 2021/22 season. This will enable subscribers to keep their seats when we return for a full season of music back at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
  • Subscriber Add-On tickets can be donated, returned for account credit, or refunded.
  • Create Your Own Package tickets can be donated, returned for account credit, or refunded.

Visit this page for the latest updates and to learn more.

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“Dented nature” is how German composer Enno Poppe describes his work. Often starting with a single idea that grows from “small sprouts,” Poppe’s music grows and expands like the branching limbs of a plant. In Fett, panels of sound are juxtaposed and overlaid at a measured pace. Microtones – frequencies between notes on a piano – cause traditional chords to come into and out of focus. The piece builds slowly, with increasingly loud climaxes, often followed by quietness; the primary emphasis is on color and texture. As one of our day’s leading interpreters of contemporary music, Susanna Mälkki will reveal every detail and shape every phrase. 

Jean Sibelius aspired to be a great violinist but found his true calling as composer and national hero to his native Finland. His Violin Concerto, the only concerto he ever wrote, shows his deep love of the instrument and features some of the most memorable and gorgeous melodies Sibelius ever composed. Written in 1904, Sibelius revised it heavily just one year later. The original, which was even more demanding of the soloist, was largely forgotten until 1991 when the Sibelius estate allowed it to be performed and recorded again. Award-winning violinist Isabelle Faust will bring her “passion, grit and electricity” (The New York Times) to Sibelius’ original, virtuosic edition. 

Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition conjures imagery from a clumsy gnome to Roman catacombs to the thrilling climax at the Great Gate at Kiev. Each vignette was inspired by the artworks of Mussorgsky’s friend artist-architect Victor Hartmann who died suddenly at 39. Mussorgsky composed a piano suite in honor of his friend, inspired by ten of Hartmann’s drawings and watercolors – most of which are now lost. This suite may now be Mussorgsky’s most widely known and performed piece through its orchestral adaptations, particularly the version by Maurice Ravel who manages to capture the characters and settings of Mussorgsky’s work just so. 

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