Orange 3: Salutation from Egypt

Programme: 
Ludwig van Beethoven, Wellington’s Victory, Op. 91
Camille Saint-Saëns, Piano Concerto No. 5 in F major, Op. 103, “The Egyptian”
Robert Schumann, Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 97, “Rhenish”

Internationally renowned Serbian pianist Jasminka Stančul has taught at the Ljubljana Academy of Music since 2013. The Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra first invited her as a soloist as early as in 1991. On this occasion, she will perform Piano Concerto No. 5 in F major by Camille Saint-Saëns with the Philharmonic. The French Romantic composer wrote the work in the Egyptian Luxor, and gave the premiere performance at the piano himself in Paris in 1896.

The concert marked the 50th anniversary of Saint-Saëns’ debut as a pianist at the Parisienne Salle Pleyel, when he thrilled the audience with a programme including Beethoven’s works at the tender age of eleven. Ludwig van Beethoven’s Wellington’s Victory was originally written in 1813 for the panharmonicon at the request of the inventor of this first automatic musical mechanism, but he also orchestrated the work for large orchestra. With sounds that mimic fanfares, cannons, military marching and warfare in general, including quotations from patriotic songs from England and France, Beethoven joined the then fashionable “war compositions” marking the victorious battles over Napoleon. The present concert – conducted by James Judd, chief conductor of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra and artistic director and chief conductor of the Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra – will conclude with the celebrated “Rhenish” Symphony by Robert Schumann, dating from 1850. It was created in just one month and in it, according to the composer, fantasy offers a sisterly hand to fugue.