Alice Sara Ott & OCM

Repertoire

Performers

Programme notes

Among his many facets, the composer Franz Liszt stood out as an excellent arranger and master of the variation. Totentanz is a clear example of these skills. This piece, written for piano and orchestra between 1847 and 1853, was adapted later for two pianos and also for solo piano, always with more than remarkable results. It stands out for being a composition articulated from a single musical theme: Dies Irae (trombones), recreated in many ways and always full of wit.

German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott broke into the international scene in 2010 when she had to replace Lang Lang at the last minute in a concert with the London Symphony Orchestra in the Barbican of London. She returns to Barcelona after accumulating a good handful of excellent reviews that have placed her among the great talents of the current music scene.

The second part of this concert, led by the Chief Conductor of the Orchestra, Tomàs Grau, is no less spectacular: the symphony suite by the Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov, inspired by the play The Thousand and One Nights, combines two very common characteristics in the Russian tradition. We refer to a brilliant and colourful orchestration and an explicit interest in the Orient. No doubt, a ‘flagship’ evening.