Kansas City Symphony: Matthias Pintscher - Emanuel Ax Plays Mozart

Kansas City Symphony: Matthias Pintscher - Emanuel Ax Plays Mozart at Helzberg Hall - Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 is darkness made beautiful. Emanuel Ax brings that stormy, atmospheric minor-key masterpiece to life when he performs with the Kansas City Symphony, and hearing him translate Mozart's turbulent emotions into sound is the kind of moment you feel rather than describe. Ax doesn't just play notes—he finds the conversation inside them, the drama Mozart buried in elegance.

Matthias Pintscher conducts a program that swings from charm to shadow to triumph. Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus overture brings the sparkle and mischief of operetta. Ax and the orchestra take on Mozart's concerto, one of only two piano concertos the composer wrote in a minor key. Its stormy atmosphere makes a striking contrast with the overture's wit.

Richard Strauss' Ein Heldenleben brings another dimension with a completely different kind of power. This massive tone poem portrays an idealized hero and his triumphs, a sweeping orchestral portrait full of ambition and grandeur. The Kansas City Symphony gets to stretch across the full range of what an orchestra can do in a single night: grace, intimacy, spectacle.

For piano lovers, Ax's Mozart is the focused center of a wide-ranging orchestral program. Around it, operetta wit and Strauss' heroic portrait offer two very different kinds of drama.

Get tickets for the March 5 concert at Helzberg Hall in Kansas City, Missouri, and enjoy the full range of this program.