Brisbane-based conductor Umberto Clerici has found space in his hectic international conducting schedule to lead the DSO in its performance of the work, to be played by Australia-based pianist Konstantin Shamray.
Clerici, who has worked with Shamray many times, knows he will play the work "amazingly", and agrees that the opening of Tchaikovsky’s concerto is very impressive.
"It is a very unusual concerto, in that it is quite unbalanced — it starts with this fantastic and famous theme, which you expect to return later in the piece, but it never does," he said.
"The first movement is much longer than the second and third movements, and it has many cadenzas.
"However, it is a beautifully romantic piece, with Ukranian folk themes and French song, that has been an audience favourite since its first performance."
The concerto will be bracketed by two equally great works — Beethoven’s short and dramatic Coriolan Overture, and Schumann’s complex Symphony No. 3, Rhenish, written to celebrate the beauty of the Rhenish countryside.
Drawing on the German story of the Roman general Coriolanus, "Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture is filled with "rage and darkness", energy and emotion, Clerici said.
"In six minutes, this great piece offers drama, extreme gestures and giant forces — it is quite mad, but wonderful," he said.
Schumann’s Rhenish symphony was gentle, sonorous and filled with complex and beautiful passages, Clerici said.
"There are majestic themes, varied moods, and a commemoration of the solemn splendour of Cologne Cathedral, which had recently been completed, after 600 years of work, when Schumann visited in 1850," he said.
In the past year, Clerici has been incredibly busy, performing all over the world, and has also embarked on his first year as chief conductor of Queensland Symphony Orchestra.
So he is delighted to be able to fit in a visit to Dunedin a year after he conducted the DSO’s matinee series concerts, in which cellist Ashley Brown performed Tan Dun’s Crouching Tiger concerto. A cellist, Clerici was soloist for Elgar’s Cello Concerto with the DSO in 2015.
"What I love about the DSO is the huge ages of different experiences within the musicians of the orchestra — this produces a special fabric of social and musical interactions," he said.
