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BBC Proms on the World Service: BBC Proms 2019: Ax and Haitink play Beethoven

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Emanuel Ax and Bernard Haitink at the 2019 BBC Proms

14/09/2019 GMT

Ax and Haitink play Beethoven

BBC Proms 2019

BBC World Service - BBC Proms on the World Service, BBC Proms 2019, Ax and Haitink play Beethoven

A sublime performance of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto

A sublime performance of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto as Bernard Haitink bids farewell to the Proms.

Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major
Franz Schubert: Impromptu in A flat major, Op. 142
 
Emanuel Ax, piano
Vienna Philharmonic
Bernard Haitink, conductor
 
It's hard to believe that Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto, now a keystone of the piano repertoire, was almost completely ignored during the composer's lifetime. It took a new generation of musicians to fully appreciate both the innovative handling of the relationship between the soloist and the orchestra and the unique blend of drama and lyricism in the score. 

Two centuries on, the Concerto is among the most frequently played at the BBC Proms and the musicians performing the work this year have a particularly strong Beethoven pedigree: Bernard Haitink's life-time immersion in this work  - he turned 90 in March - shows in every concert while Emanuel Ax's Beethoven interpretations have been globally acclaimed for decades. The concert has an added significance as it's likely to be Haitink's last in the UK.
 
Presented from London's Royal Albert Hall by Andrew McGregor and Natasha Loges.

Photo: Emanuel Ax and Bernard Haitink at the 2019 BBC Proms  Credit: BBC/Chris Christodoulou

BBC Proms on the World Service: BBC Proms 2019

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Highlights from the 2019 season of BBC Proms, the UK's greatest classical music festival.

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