Curator's Series: Buchanan, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven

Dorothy Buchanan’s Peace Fanfare was commissioned as part of Auckland Philharmonia’s celebration of the new millennium – a moment many of us will remember – alongside ten other Aotearoa New Zealand composers.

Cellist Heather Lewis is featured as soloist for Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, a work that showcases Tchaikovsky’s love of the classicism of Mozart and Haydn. Audiences will be taken through a delightful set of variations on an elegant 18th century-inspired theme, which was originally written for Tchaikovsky’s colleague Wilhelm Fitzenhagen.

We round out this programme with a symphonic icon. With Beethoven’s first symphony we meet a composer showing respect for his teachers, Mozart and Haydn, while also daring to innovate. He features the woodwinds in a way that we don’t blink at today but would have been quite audacious in 1800. This masterpiece is one of the first paving stones on a path that reinvented the symphony for future generations.