Beethoven Piano Concerto Cycle Will Be Performed By The Cleveland Orchestra

The Cleveland Orchestra has announced that Music Director Franz Welser-Möst will be unable to conduct the upcoming three weeks of performances in Cleveland due to ongoing medical treatment. 

Following Franz Welser-Möst’s cancellation, pianist Igor Levit withdrew from his planned performances of the Beethoven piano concertos. 

Five world-famous pianists will now perform instead, and the programs will remain the same. Sir Stephen Hough, Yunchan Lim, Garrick Ohlsson, Minsoo Sohn, and Orion Weiss will step in for this highly anticipated cycle, works that revolutionized concerto writing and remain cornerstones of the classical repertoire. Cleveland Orchestra Associate Conductor Daniel Reithwill lead all programs. 

The cycle opens on November 6 and 7 with Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, featuring Augustin Hadelich, Julia Hagen, and Cleveland native Orion Weiss. Hadelich and Weiss, an accomplished musical duo known for their captivating chemistry, have recently released American Road Trip, an album that celebrates the works of American composers. 

The Triple Concerto is paired with Beethoven’s Third Concerto, featuring the renowned Sir Stephen Hough in his much-anticipated return to Severance. Hough, who recently recorded the complete Beethoven cycle, earned high praise from Gramophone magazine: “It is a tribute to the quality of Stephen Hough’s musicianship that the new cycle’s most memorable performance should be that of Beethoven’s […] Third Piano Concerto, the one – on record at least – that has often proved the most elusive.” 

On November 9 and 12, Cleveland Orchestra favorite Garrick Ohlsson takes on both Beethoven’s Second and Fourth concertos. Known for his “virtually peerless keyboard muscle” (The Plain Dealer), Ohlsson returns to Severance following a dazzling subscription week with Franz Welser-Möst earlier this year featuring Mozart’s final piano concerto. 

The cycle concludes on November 15 to 17 with the much-anticipated Cleveland Orchestra debut of pianist Yunchan Lim. Lim, who became an international sensation as the youngest winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2022, will perform Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto. Marin Alsop, who chaired the Jury, described Lim as “that rare artist who brings profound musicality and prodigious technique organically together.” Minsoo Sohn, Lim’s esteemed mentor and teacher at the New England Conservatory of Music, will open the program with a performance of Beethoven’s First Concerto. 

Updates for the Mahler’s Song of the Earth program on November 21, 22, and 23 are forthcoming.