Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Event Details

Featuring

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Jaime Martín conductor

Program

Deborah Cheetham New work
Brahms Symphony No. 2

About the performance

The impact of Beethoven’s life and work is felt in the insurmountable examples and admirers the German master left in his wake. 

• Brahms under pressure
  The young Johannes Brahms suffered from the great pressure of high expectation placed upon him by the European musical public, thanks to a particularly enthusiastic advocate in Robert Schumann. That and the fact that Brahms himself was his own harshest critic (he burned many more manuscripts than he published) meant he did not feel ready to compose in the symphonic form until he was in his 40s.
• The footsteps of a giant
  Brahms imagined hearing “the footsteps of a giant” behind him – that giant being Beethoven – making him question his readiness and ability. He would eventually tackle the symphony, his first being one of epic proportions. Just four months after the First’s hugely successful premiere in 1877 he would deliver his Symphony No. 2, a work displaying the composer’s hopeful, glorious and peaceful best. Brahms had stepped out of the shadow of the giant, and become one himself.

NOTE 'Testament' by Brett Dean has been replaced in these concerts by a work by Deborah Cheetham.

Duration: approx. 60 minutes with no interval

Program and artists subject to change.

Featured non-Australian music: Brahms

Further information for this event is available online at the event's website or by email to boxoffice@mso.com.au

Featured Australian Works

Featured artists

• Performer Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
• Conductor Jaime Martin