Concert Programme
J. Brahms. Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, op. 15
H. Berlioz. “Symphonie Fantastique”, op. 14
“Nuron Mukumi subtly combines a sensitive, impeccable performance technique with an exceptional perception of the dramaturgy of piano compositions: a talent that unites precision and playfulness,” – wrote Werner Theurich (“Spiegel Online”) about the pianist, who will be visiting Lithuania for the first time this fall. German-Uzbek pianist N. Mukumi was born in Tashkent in 1996. At the age of just eight, he performed W. A. Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D minor with the Uzbek National Symphony Orchestra, which he also conducted during his performance. The video of the concert quickly became a hit – N. Mukumi was offered a scholarship to study at the Purcell School of Music in London, which he went to when he was 11. Three years later, in 2010, the pianist was invited to study at the Frankfurt School of Music, and later N. Mukumi continued his studies in Zurich, Paris and Hamburg. Praised as a “high-class interpreter of music” (“Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”), the pianist successfully performs with the most famous European symphony orchestras. In October 2024, N. Mukumi released his third album, “Portraits of Bowen”, which was nominated for the International Classical Music Awards in 2025.
In the concert hall of the LSSO, N. Mukumi will perform Johannes Brahms' (1833–1897) First Piano Concerto. J. Brahms worked on this magnificent work for more than five years. The result exceeded expectations: after the first rehearsal of the concert in Hanover, Clara Schumann wrote: “The whole concerto is very beautiful, and some of its parts sound even more beautiful than Johannes could have expected or imagined”.
In the second part of the concert, the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra will perform one of the most famous works by the great French romantic Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) – “Fantastical Symphony”, the full title of which is “Fantastical Symphony: An Episode in the Life of an Artist”. This symphony is one of the first pieces of program music, and is also distinguished by its highly innovative, even revolutionary ideé fixe theme for that era – it depicts H. Berlioz’s own hallucinatory fantasies, which bothered him due to his unhappy love for the Irish actress Harriet Smithson. The symphony, presented in Paris in 1830, earned H. Berlioz a reputation as one of the most progressive composers of the century.
This evening, the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra will be conducted by Sébastien Rouland, who has been the artistic director of the Saarländische Staastheater Saarbrücken in Germany since 2018.