2014 New Year’s Eve Concert with Simon Rattle and Menahem Pressler On DVD & Blu-ray

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Every year, the New Year’s Eve Concert by the Berliner Philharmoniker is an outstanding event in the international concert calendar. In 2014, the guest appearance of a musical legend provided an additional highlight: Menahem Pressler, who served as the pianist of the famous Beaux Arts Trio for over 50 years and only made his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker in January 2014 at the age of 90. In this New Year’s Eve Concert, conducted by Simon Rattle, Pressler enchanted audiences in Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A major, K. 488 with a luminous tone and a wealth of nuance and feeling. The audience responded with a standing ovation.

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The press wrote about the exhilarating affinity between the orchestra and its soloist: “Pressler lets blossom a rounded, blissful, fairytale-like legato which is answered and continued by these heavenly Philharmoniker musicians. Only the best sit at this hour at the first desks, the most sinewy viola, the smoothest clarinet, the softest horn” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung).

The orchestra and its conductor demonstrated its virtuosity and stylistic flexibility in Baroque, Classical and Romantic music in Jean-Philippe Rameau’s suite from Les Indes gallant, the Slavonic Dances by Antonín Dvořák and Zoltán Kodály’s Háry János Suite. Encores by Brahms and Khachaturian provided the audience with a lively start into the new year.

As a bonus, the DVD edition of this special concert includes an in-depth documentary in which Menahem Pressler looks back on his long life as an artist and talks about the principles of his music-making

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DVD & BLU-RAY

Berliner Philharmoniker
Sir Simon Rattle Conductor
Menahem Pressler Piano
 
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Suite from Les Indes galantes
 
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Piano Concerto in A major K. 488
 
Frédéric Chopin
Nocturne in C-sharp minor Op. Posth.
 
Aram Khatchaturian
From the Gayaneh Suite No. 1: No. 8 Lezginka
 
Antonín Dvořák
Slavonic Dances Op. 46 No. 2 & Op. 72 No. 7
 
Zoltán Kodály
Háry János Suite
 
Johannes Brahms
Hungarian Dance No. 1 in G minor
 

BONUS

The Life I Love – The pianist Menahem Pressler
A film by Grete Liffers

 

Available versions

Video trailer

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