Beatrice Rana Plays Bach
Part of: Carnegie Hall Series
October 17, 2019 | 8:00 PM
Carnegie Hall – Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage
Bernard Labadie opens his second season as Principal Conductor joined by Italian virtuoso Beatrice Rana performing Bach keyboard concertos on the modern piano. The program also features Mendelssohn’s The Hebrides Overture and “Scottish” Symphony.
Learn more the artists and discover more about the works on this program before joining us at Carnegie Hall on Thursday, October 17!
At A Glance
This program illuminates the connections between J. S. Bach and Felix Mendelssohn. Nearly 124 years separated the two composers’ births, and the worlds they inhabited were even further apart. Bach was a devout Lutheran and a church and court musician whose music was mainly written for private consumption by an exclusive audience; Mendelssohn, by contrast, came from a prominent upper–middle-class Jewish family, and was equally comfortable as a composer and performer in private salons and public concert halls. But connections between the composers can be found in the influences they had on one another. In Mendelssohn’s theatrical The Hebrides Overture, the composer’s admiration for Bach is evident in the complex contrapuntal writing that evokes the powerful and tempestuous Scottish landscape; similarly, the chorale-like melody of the third movement and the warlike fugal writing in the final movement of Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 recall Bach’s vocal and instrumental writing. Mendelssohn repaid his debt to Bach by reviving interest in the Baroque composer’s music, especially his choral and oratorio works, when he conducted the first public performance of the St. Matthew Passion in nearly a century in March 1829. Beginning with Mendelssohn’s great-aunt, harpsichordist Sara Levy, the Mendelssohn family championed Bach’s music through the 18th century and into the 19th. Levy frequently performed Bach’s keyboard concertos—including the Keyboard Concerto No. 1—in recital, and both Mendelssohn and his sister, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, included the Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in their recital repertoires throughout their careers.
Program Notes
Read the program notes ahead of the performance. Read More
Beatrice Rana: Live in The Netherlands
Watch Beatrice Rana perform Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D Minor. Click here
Meet The Artists
Bernard Labadie, Principal Conductor
