The Max Concerto

A new piano concerto by Anders Hillborg! The Max Concerto is written for and dedicated to the outstanding American pianist Emanuel Ax – known among friends as “Manny Ax,” resulting in the title Max. Ax gave the world performance of Hillborg’s second piano concerto in November with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen. This is the European premiere, led by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s chief conductor Ryan Bancroft.   

From piano to winds. Note the plural form of Stravinsky’s “symphonies” of wind instruments: this is not about symphonic music, but harmonic sounds – from the Greek symphonia, union of sound. What began as a piano piece in memory of Debussy became an original work for woodwinds and brass, with a kind of ritualistic, mass-like character.

During a hectic summer three years before his death, Mozart composed his last three symphonies. The forty-first symphony, his most grandiose, was also his last. The finale is one of Mozart’s greatest achievements – an unparalleled listening adventure, filled with captivating melodies and finesses of counterpoint. The symphony is called Jupiter, after the Roman god.