Paul Terracini | conductor
Phillip Shovk  piano

MOZART  Die Zauberflöte Overture
MOZART  Piano Concerto No. 20
BRAHMS Symphony No. 1

Mozart’s prodigious talent and prolific output came at huge personal cost as he worked himself into an early and impecunious grave. His twentieth piano concerto, played here by Phillip Shovk, one of Australia’s foremost concert pianists and chamber musicians, was composed during a time of escalating financial woes. By the time Die Zauberflöte was premiered, its immediate success brought Mozart brief comfort, but too late to reverse his fortunes: he died a few weeks later. Brahms, on the other hand, famously wrestled for twenty years with the writing of his first symphony. He considered it partly a homage to Beethoven, but never ceased to feel overshadowed by his idol.