“Piano Concerto” was performed by Aarhus Symphony Orchestra Friday 7 October at a concert celebrating AUT – Aarhus Unge Tonekunstnere’s 50 years anniversary.
The concert received a number of great reviews, and regarding “Piano Concerto”, the critics wrote:
“Ragtime and Beethoven outlined the historic perspective, while the instrument and the relations between its mechanics and its sound, its history and presence was explored in a way that resulted in a new piece of music. At the same time substantial, thoughtful and straightforward.”
- Politiken
“Steen-Andersen has made a fantastic sound piece, exploring the piano in every detail and scratching its way back to the piano gurus of the romantic era and past the avant-garde experiments of the early 1900’s. Yes – a grand piano also has an inner life.”
- Aarhus Stiftstidende
“By way of video recordings the sound of a crushed piano was weaved into the actual concert with Nicolas Hodges by an intact piano; a meeting between the perfect and the fallen piano which with fierce chaos-chords was horrifying, innovative and potent.”
- Jyllandsposten
“We got an impressively beautiful and effective work of precision both scenic and musically in a double concert for a modern grand piano and an almost broken instrument with an exciting, musical processing of the given material.”
- JCKlassisk
Besides from “Piano Concerto”, works by Lasse D. Hansen, Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, Mathias Monrad Møller and Rasmus Zwicki were on the programme. The whole concert was broadcast live at DR P2 and can be heard here.
Read the full concert reviews below. (In Danish)