All Together Now: Yefim Bronfman

When Yefim Bronfman (born in Tashkent, resident since the ’70s of Manhattan) plays the last two of Beethoven’s five piano concertos (Dec. 7 and 9, Orpheum Theatre), it will be a special experience, says VSO conductor Bramwell Tovey, a long-time friend and colleague of “Fima.” The cycle’s final work, the so-called Emperor Concerto, is the best-known and most daunting of the five. Among its many pleasures, Tovey points to the dying moments of the second movement, when the orchestra “seems to stand still”-this concerto, more so than many, generously balances orchestra and soloist-“and the piano just hints at the final theme before it bursts out with a complex rhythm the orchestra emulates in an even more electrifying way. Unbridled joy.”

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