December 17, 2025 — Svetlanov Hall of the Moscow International Performing Arts Center
Soloist — Denis Matsuev, piano
Conductor — Vladimir Spivakov
Beethoven. The Consecration of the House (Die Weihe des Hauses), Op. 124
Beethoven. Concerto No. 1 for piano and orchestra in C major, Op. 15
Beethoven. Concerto No. 5 for piano and orchestra in E-flat major, Op. 73
Vladimir Spivakov and the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia are dedicating the monographic programme at the Moscow International Performing Arts Center to the art of Ludwig van Beethoven whose 255th anniversary is celebrated in 2025. The concert is built around Piano Concertos by the Viennese classic to play which there has been invited Denis Matsuev, close friend and many-years partner of the maestro and the NPR.
The orchestra will also perform the rarely heard Overture written by Beethoven for the inauguration of a new theater in Vienna suburb Josephstadt. For its opening, the choice fell on the Consecration of the House play by Austrian playwright Carl Meisl, one of the main representatives of the Viennese folk comedy of the 19th century. The play, based mostly on allegories and dithyrambs, was staged with the music by several composers, Beethoven included. His Overture appealed to the Baroque era, especially to works by Handel and Bach. According to his contemporaries, the author himself had been eager to write an overture ostensibly in a serious Handel style.
Then there will be performed two Piano Concertos by Beethoven, the first and the last. If Concerto No 1 is an opus by a young virtuoso, devoted to the traditions of Mozart and Haydn, just arrived to conquer Vienna, Concerto No. 5 is a masterpiece of a matured master written in his own manner. This is the most monumental work by Beethoven in its genre, called unofficially The Emperor for its grand scale of ideas, images and resplendence of the score.
Denis Matsuev included Concerto No 5 into his repertoire only a year ago:
"It was Vladimir Spivakov who aroused my interest in the Fifth Concerto named The Emperor by Beethoven, — admits the musician. — This is the last of Beethoven’s Concertos that I had not played. Now there are 50 Concertos in my repertoire, It is a magnificent, absolutely brilliant music! However, our relations had been long distant... Such an oeuvre cannot be taken abruptly on the fly. Richter said that you should feel deeply that everything in you started boiling, like water beginning to boil, and then you could bring the work to the audience. And just now I am having such a boiling passionate romance with Beethoven’s Fifth Concerto".