2025 SYMPHONIC SEASON – TEATRO G. VERDI, TRIESTE
From 11 September to 23 December 2025
*******
6th Concert
Friday 17 October 2025 – 7:30 p.m.
Conductor DANIEL OREN
Piano ALEXANDER GADJIEV
Fryderyk Chopin Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21
Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92
ORCHESTRA OF THE FONDAZIONE TEATRO LIRICO GIUSEPPE VERDI DI TRIESTE IN COLLABORATION WITH THE FVG ORCHESTRA
With a richly curated programme led by the return of Daniel Oren to the podium of the Verdi’s Symphonic Season and enhanced by virtuosic brilliance of Alexander Gadjiev, one of Italy’s most acclaimed young pianists, the Theatre reaffirms its leading role in developing joint productions throughout Friuli Venezia Giulia. On this occasion, the ICO FVG Orchestra joins forces on stage with the Orchestra of the Teatro Verdi.
Best known and much admired for his operatic performances, Daniel Oren has long been absent from the symphonic season. His return is therefore particularly significant: at the head of a regional ensemble that brings together the Teatro Verdi Orchestra and members of the ICO FVG Orchestra—the latter founded in 2019 through a partnership between the Region and ten municipalities of Friuli Venezia Giulia, in a collective effort to foster the area’s cultural growth. Opening the evening with Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 will be one of the rising stars of Italian music on the international scene, the young Gorizia-born pianist Alexander Gadjiev, winner of the Premio Venezia and of the Second prize, and of the Krystian Zimerman Special Prize at the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 2019; he later went on to win First prize at the Sydney International Piano Competition in 2021 and was named a “BBC New Generation Artist” (2019–2021). Since his debut, Gadjiev, Ambassador of GO! 2025, has appeared on some of the world’s most prestigious stages — from Salzburg to London’s Wigmore Hall — establishing himself today as one of the most promising and acclaimed young artists of his generation.
The evening begins with one of the few piano concertos composed by Chopin, written in his youth — specifically the Concerto No. 2, first performed in Warsaw and later chosen for his Paris debut in 1832. The work remains today a cornerstone of Chopin’s refined sensibility, perfectly balancing his distinctive piano style with the full sonorities of the nineteenth-century symphony orchestra.
The second half of the Concert features one of Beethoven’s most beloved symphonies, the Seventh, whose famous Allegretto was, from its Vienna premiere, among the most frequently requested encores during the composer’s lifetime in all the major European capitals. Despite its undisputed popular success, the work was long regarded by critics as excessively extravagant — even within the Romantic context — until Wagner reversed that judgment, writing: “[…] in glad self-consciousness as we sound throughout the universe the daring strains of this human sphere-dance. The Symphony is the Apotheosis of the Dance itself: it is Dance in its highest aspect, the loftiest deed of bodily motion.”
A truly “dancing” finale to an unmissable evening for music lovers across the region.