• The New Yorker says of our guest pianist for these concerts: "What sets Trifonov apart is a pair of attributes that are seldom found in one pianist: monstrous technique and lustrous tone." Read more. 
• No one really knows how Beethoven’s final concerto got the title Emperor. One story goes that a French soldier shouted “C’est l’Empereur!” ("This is the Emperor!") at its premiere.
• Beethoven wrote his fifth piano concerto in 1809, the same year Napoleon’s French army marched the suburbs of Vienna. Beethoven used pillows to protect his hearing as cannon fire flooded the city.
• What's a concerto? We're glad you asked.
• We close the concert with Stravinsky's Symphony in C, which Stravinsky himself conducted at Music Hall in 1940.

Explore our Spotify playlist for this concert.