Residentie Orkest in the AVROTROS Friday Concert

The AVROTROS Friday concert on 29 January 2021 will unfortunately be without an audience due to the measures surrounding the coronavirus.
NB: This concert will be recorded at 15.00 and can be heard from 20.15 on NPO Radio 4. The programme has been adjusted.



Today, thanks to fast switching, improvisation and the attitude of not letting yourself be put off balance, AVROTROS has once again managed to programme an alternative to a concert that could not take place (Noord Nederlands Orkest with a conductor and soloist who are unable to travel). And what a concert it was. If you are sensitive to symbolism, Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto has a lot to offer. The piano begins solo, unaccompanied, with some soft, seductive chords (dolce), after which it is silent for minutes. As a listener, you think: when are you coming back, where did you go, is there still a bit of music in it? Of course, the protagonist returns, and then completely changes the concert to his own liking, with an alternation of bold statements, daydreams and poetic views.
Shostakovich also misled his listeners with his Ninth Symphony. Shortly after the Second World War, the party bosses expected a heroic victory symphony, but Shostakovich kept it small and subtle. The symphony is closer to the Viennese classics than to the pathos of the Soviet Union.
The opening work cannot go unmentioned: the One Minute Symphony by the Italian composition student Petra Cini. The Residentie Orkest has made room in its regular programming for young composers who can make a one-minute statement or pocket symphony with a full orchestra. Petra Cini's work was initially programmed when the Zuiderstrandtheater thought it could pick up the thread after the first lockdown, hence the optimistic character. That concert was cancelled, which is why the work has its world premiere today.