For the season’s closing concert, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra returns to the LAC alongside Yuja Wang in a programme entirely devoted to Brahms’s two concertos for piano and orchestra. This monumental diptych, entrusted to one of the most charismatic performers on the international scene and a highly distinguished ensemble, highlights two pivotal moments in the composer’s career.

Founded in 1997 on the initiative of Claudio Abbado, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra is one of the most influential international ensembles on today’s scene, comprising musicians from over twenty countries and recognised for its artistic identity and chamber-music approach to ensemble playing. In the demanding role of soloist and conductor, alongside the MCO is Yuja Wang: one of the most celebrated pianists of her generation, admired for the virtuosity and communicative power of her performances.
Brought together in a single programme, Brahms’s two concertos clearly reflect the evolution of the composer’s thinking; he was, after all, an exceptional pianist himself. Concerto No. 1, the product of a long and troubled gestation, bears the marks of dramatic tension and a strongly symphonic structure, in which piano and orchestra engage on a completely equal footing. Concerto No. 2, composed more than twenty years later, broadens the formal and poetic horizon, with a monumental yet more expansive style, rich in contrasts and lyrical momentum.
The result is a grand two-part fresco, revealing Brahms’ conception of the concerto as a symphonic form that is as virtuosic as it is expressive.