Augustin Hadelich makes his fifth visit in nine years to help open the 63rd season of the Grand Teton Music Festival this week.
The Italian-born, German-American violinist will play a short work by Dvorak during Thursday night’s opening chamber music program. That also will feature a wind quintet arrangement of the overture to Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” Brahms’ Sextet No. 1 in B-flat Major, Romanza for Four Violas (in which the composer, Nashville’s Christopher Lowry, will perform) and Brooklyn-born bassoonist Bernard Garfield’s Quartet for Bassoon and String Trio.
“I’m playing only one short work at the start,” Hadelich said via email, “Dvorak’s Terzetto [for two violins and viola]. I love Dvorak’s music in general, and this piece is a real gem. I’ve known the musicians I’m playing with [violinist Marta Krechkovsky and violist Julianne Lee] for years and can’t wait to make music with them!”
He’ll be back Friday and Saturday night to solo on Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, with Sir Donald Runnicles leading the Festival Orchestra.
“I’ve played the Beethoven concerto most of my life,” Hadelich said. “I started when I was around 10 years old and never really stopped. It’s one of those great works of music that becomes only more beautiful the more you hear them and study them and play them. This piece is one of the reasons why I wanted to become a violinist!”
…Also on the weekend program are Brahms’ Symphony No. 3 — of which none other than Antonin Dvorak said, “I say without exaggerating that this work surpasses his first two symphonies; if not, perhaps, in grandeur and powerful conception, then certainly in beauty” — and the world premiere of Detlev Glanert’s “Vexierbild,” which is based on the same Brahms symphony.