For the beginning of his music directorship of the Munich Philharmonic Valery Gergiev came up with a truly special event: A one day Prokofiev marathon with all five piano concertos. Joining Gergiev, arguably today’s leading conductor for works by Prokofiev, and his Munich orchestra was his Mariinsky Orchestra from St. Petersburg as well as five outstanding pianists, Herbert Schuch, Denis Matsuev, Behzod Abduraimov, Alexei Volodin and Olli Mustonen. Each of these virtuosos performs one of Prokofiev’s five piano concertos, and, “not least because the interpretations were so varied,” observed Munich’s Süddeutsche Zeitung, “the result was a highly revealing Prokofiev portrait.”
Maestro Gergiev has chosen to complement the Prokofiev concertos with a wide spectrum of works by Haydn, Mozart, Weber, Reger, Shchedrin and clarinettist-composer Jörg Widmann. “A miracle occurred in Mozart’s Clarinet concerto,” wrote the Süddeutsche Zeitung, “performed by Jörg Widmann with such insight into its essence and structure that he might have composed it himself. And the Munich Philharmonic, of whom Gergiev has been chief conductor for just two months, played as if enchanted by their good fortune.”

Sergei Prokofiev
Piano Concerto No. 5 in G major, Op. 55
further programme:
Jörg Widmann
“Con Brio”, Concert Overture for Orchestra
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Clarinet Concerto in A major, KV 622