Guy Braunstein: Abbey Road Concerto Guy Braunstein, Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège & Alondra de la Parra

• Guy Braunstein (b. 1971): Abbey Road Concerto for Violin and Orchestra:
• 1 Braunstein: Abbey Road Concerto for Violin and Orchestra: I. Ouverture 01:29
• 2 Braunstein: Abbey Road Concerto for Violin and Orchestra: II. Come together 02:25
• 3 Braunstein: Abbey Road Concerto for Violin and Orchestra: III. Intermezzo 1 - Oh Darling 03:10
• 4 Braunstein: Abbey Road Concerto for Violin and Orchestra: IV. Intermezzo 2 01:05
• 5 Braunstein: Abbey Road Concerto for Violin and Orchestra: V. Something 03:53
• 6 Braunstein: Abbey Road Concerto for Violin and Orchestra: VI. Intermezzo 3 - Octopus’s Garden 02:01
• 7 Braunstein: Abbey Road Concerto for Violin and Orchestra: VII. Intermezzo 4 00:39
• 8 Braunstein: Abbey Road Concerto for Violin and Orchestra: VIII. Here Comes The Sun 02:13
• 9 Braunstein: Abbey Road Concerto for Violin and Orchestra: IX. I Want you 03:43
• 10 Braunstein: Abbey Road Concerto for Violin and Orchestra: X. Because 03:10
• 11 Braunstein: Abbey Road Concerto for Violin and Orchestra: XI. Cadenza - “Remembering… strawberries?” 04:39
• 12 Braunstein: Abbey Road Concerto for Violin and Orchestra: XII. Maxwell’s Silver Hammer 01:54
• 13 Braunstein: Abbey Road Concerto for Violin and Orchestra: XIII. Golden Slumbers 02:01
• 14 Braunstein: Abbey Road Concerto for Violin and Orchestra: XIV. Carry That Weight 01:12
• 15 Braunstein: Abbey Road Concerto for Violin and Orchestra: XV. The End 01:26
• Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958): The Lark Ascending:
• 16 Williams: The Lark Ascending 14:24
• Frederick Delius (1862 - 1934): Violin concerto:
• 17 Delius: Violin concerto: I. 05:32
• 18 Delius: Violin Concerto: II. 07:40
• 19 Delius: Violin concerto: III. 03:17
• 20 Delius: Violin concerto: IV. 06:07
• Total Runtime 01:12:00

Info for Guy Braunstein: Abbey Road Concerto

Guy Braunstein, der fast fünfzehn Jahre lang Konzertmeister der Berliner Philharmoniker war, ist weltweit erfolgreich als Solist, Dirigent und Komponist tätig. Als bei ihm zu Hause im Kreise seiner Familie die Beatlemania ausbrach, verarbeitete Braunstein ein Dutzend Songs aus dem berühmten Abbey Road-Album der Beatles zu einem Konzert für Violine und Orchester mit dem Titel Abbey Road Concerto. Das Konzert verbindet Braunsteins eigene Kompositionen der Ouvertüre, des Intermezzos, der Cadenza und des Endes mit seinen Bearbeitungen von John Lennons, Paul McCartneys und George Harrisons Hits wie Come Together, Oh Darling, Here Comes The Sun und I Want You. Die junge mexikanische Dirigentin Alondra de la Parra hegt ebenfalls eine tiefe Zuneigung zu den Beatles. Es war für sie daher eine Selbstverständlichkeit, das Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège bei dieser mitreißenden und außergewöhnlichen Interpretation der zeitlosen und epochalen Musik zu leiten, die die Band 1969 in den Abbey Road Studios aufgenommen hat. Neben Braunsteins Abbey Road Concerto erklingen Ralph Vaughan Williams' beliebtes The Lark Ascending und Frederick Delius' selten aufgeführtes Violinkonzert. Die beiden Werke von Delius und Vaughan Williams wurden, wie auch das Album Abbey Road selbst, in den Abbey Road Studios in London erstmals aufgenommen.

Guy Braunstein, Violine
Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liege
Alondra de la Parra, Dirigent

Guy Braunstein
A unique blend of virtuosity, restraint and creativity – this is what violinist, conductor and composer Guy Braunstein stands for. Like few others, he not only knows how to convince audiences with his music, but also how to challenge them: Whether with demanding programmes, sophisticated interpretations or his own works and arrangements – Guy Braunstein aims to surprise and reinvent. And although he can easily be categorised in the “tradition of the great Jewish violinists such as Mischa Elman and Isaac Stern” (Telegraph), for him music lives not only from its own history, but through perpetual renewal, updating and unexpected twists and turns.

Whether as a celebrated soloist who masters the standard repertoire from Bach to Shostakovich with ease, or as a congenial chamber music partner in a wide variety of formations: Guy Braunstein is a guest at the world’s most important music centres and festivals. He has performed with renowned orchestras such as the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra London and the Berlin Philharmonic. His musical partners include András Schiff, Zubin Mehta, Maurizio Pollini, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Yefim Bronfman, Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle, Martha Argerich, Mitsuko Uchida, Christoph von Dohnányi, Lang Lang, Emmanuel Ax, Andris Nelsons and Semyon Bychkov. Guy Braunstein is also present on the international concert stage as a conductor: he was Conductor and Artist in Residence with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and the Trondheim Symfoniorkester and works with orchestras such as the Helsinki, Rotterdam and Israel Philharmonic as well as the Queensland Symphony Orchestra.

Highlights of the 2023/24 season include concerts with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, the Prague Chamber Soloists and the Copenhagen Phil, in which Guy Braunstein will appear as soloist and conductor. The programmes include his own works such as “Die Nacht wird immer verklärter” and the Rusalka Rhapsody as well as the violin concertos by Elgar, Delius and Haydn.

Guy Braunstein’s greatest and identity-forming passion is arranging and composing: In the romantic tradition of Paganini and Liszt, he brilliantly transcribes musical masterpieces for his own or other instruments and instrumentations and presents operas, chamber music or even songs in a completely new form. In addition to excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” and “Swan Lake”, he has also arranged Puccini arias and Dvořák’s opera “Rusalka”. In 2023, “Die Nacht wird immer verklärter”, an arrangement of Schönberg’s string sextet “Verklärte Nacht”, celebrated its premiere with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. The violinist is particularly fond of the Beatles’ songs: in addition to Six Variations on “Blackbird” and the arrangements of “A hard day’s night” and “Something”, Guy Braunstein also wrote “Abbey Road Concerto”, a highly virtuoso version of the Beatles’ album “Abbey Road” for solo violin and orchestra.

In 2024, Guy Braunstein will release his own as well as Delius’ Violin Concerto and Vaughan-Williams’ “The Lark Ascending” on Alpha Records in a recording with Alondra de la Parra and Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège. His 2019 albums “Tchaikovsky Treasures” with Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto and his own arrangements, “Old Souls” with arrangements of chamber music works by Dvořák, Beethoven, Wolf and Kreisler and “Music of my Heart” (2012) with works by Bloch, Chausson, Brahms, Corelli and others were praised by the international press, as well as his recording of Bruch’s Violin Concerto and the “Scottish Fantasy”, recorded with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Ion Marin.

Guy Braunstein grew up in Tel Aviv and began playing the violin at the age of seven. He studied with Chaim Taub and later in New York with Glenn Dicterow and Pinchas Zuckerman and his mentor Isaac Stern. His collaboration with Claudio Abbado in particular is one of Guy Braunstein’s most important influences. In 2000, he became the youngest violinist in the orchestra’s history to take over the position of concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic and helped shape the orchestra for over a decade. He was Artistic Director of the Rolandseck Festival and the clasclas Festival in Galicia.

Guy Braunstein plays a violin made by Francesco Ruggieri in 1679.

Booklet for Guy Braunstein: Abbey Road Concerto