Classical Hour
Oleg Ptashnikov
Igor Levit Robert Schumann
Hector Berlioz

Due to illness, Elim Chan has had to withdraw from this concert and will be replaced by Oleg Ptashnikov. As a result, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé will be replaced with Hector Berlioz's Overture “Le Corsaire”.

The concert opens with the overture Le Corsaire (in english, The Pirate) from 1844 by Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) He considered naming the exuberant piece “The Red Pirate” after J.F. Cooper's novel. The Pirate by Lord Byron was also one of Berlioz’ favorite stories.

«... I have already told you that I can not write a concerto for virtuosos and must think of something else,» wrote Robert Schumann (1810-1856) to his fiancé Clara Wieck in 1939. He had already begun working on four different piano concertos without being able to finish them.

But Clara—who became Clara Schumann the year after and was one of Europe's best pianists—kept encouraging her husband to write for piano and orchestra. After a few years of new attempts in smaller formats, Robert Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor saw the light of day in 1845.

Schumann's Piano Concerto has since become his most famous work and the most played piano concerto from the Romantic period. As a 15-year-old, Edvard Grieg experienced hearing Clara Schumann as the soloist in the piece, and it became the model for his own piano concerto a few years later.

Oleg Ptashnikov

Oleg Ptashnikov was born in Dnipro in Ukraine. He graduated from his studies at the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music in Moscow with Oleg Boshniakovich and Natalia Gulyanitskaya in 1995 with a diploma as a concert pianist and a further diploma in musicology. While still a student he worked as a répétiteur, conductor, arranger and composer at various Moscow theatres. Since the 2002/03 season Oleg Ptashnikov has been Kapellmeister at the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich. As a guest conductor he has worked with orchestras including the Munich Radio Orchestra, the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid. From 2014 to 2019 Oleg Ptashnikov was musical assistant to Mariss Jansons, and made his debut with Vienna Philharmonic at the 2024 Salzburg Summer Festival. This is Ptashnikov's first performance with the Oslo Philharmonic.

Igor Levit

With an alert and critical mind, Igor Levit places his art in the context of social events and understands it as inseparably linked to them. The New York Times describes Igor Levit as one of the “most important artists of his generation”. Born in Nizhni Novgorod, Igor Levit moved to Germany with his family at the age of eight. He completed his piano studies in Hannover with the highest score in the history of the institute. This is Levit's first performance with the Oslo Philharmonic sine august 2012.