On the evening of March 23, the famous pianist Lovro Pogorelich gave a concert named “Pictures at an Exhibition” at Beihang Sunrise Concert Hall in memory of the 180th birthday of the prominent Russian composer Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky.
The concert kicked off with one of Mussorgsky’s classics “Pictures at an Exhibition”, a timely and decent homage paid to the influential composer as the year of 2019 marks his 180th birthday.
Mussorgsky got his inspiration of the famous piano cycle back in 1873 when he attended the swansong exhibition of a close friend who died from an emergency at the age of 39. Throughout the work, therefore, it unfolds a heavy sense of mourning and respect.
Pogorelich’s playing with impressive beauty and sophistication shone light on the magic of music. The smooth flow of music managed to calm every anxious heart in the audience.
At the concert Lovro Pogorelich also performed other famous music pieces like Scriabin Fantasy In B Minor Op. 28, Scriabin：Piano Sonata No.5, op. 53 in F sharp major-Allegro-Presto con allegrezza Meno vivo-prestissimo, and so on.
The concert ended with two encores in response to the long standing ovation by the audience.
Born in 1970, Lovro Pocorelich received his first piano lessons from his father Ivan, a classically trained musician. At the age of twelve he began studying with the Russian pianist and pedagogue Konstantin Bogino. Upon turning thirteen, he gave his first recital featuring works by Schumann, Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninov, and two years later he appeared as a soloist in the Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto with Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra.
In 1993 Pogorelich left for Paris, where he spent a year-long stint under the patronage of the French Crédit National Foundation; during that time he gave a number of performances and recorded a CD for the French label Lyrinx, featuring works by Modest Mussorgsky (Pictures at an Exhibition) and Sergei Prokofiev (Sonata No. 7).
Pogorelichhas also recorded one of the first musical DVDs in the world (Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 with the Danish Odense Symphony Orchestra for DENON) and has made numerous other recordings for the Croatian, French, Dutch and Danish radio stations.
Reported and edited by Song Chao
Translated by Li Siying
