Lisa Batiashvili, Gautier Capuçon ⬩ Czech Philharmonic

The pairing of Lisa Batiashvili and Gautier Capuçon in Brahms’s Double Concerto is a dream come true for both musicians and audiences. Seldom do two of the world’s very greatest artists join forces rather than playing solo concertos, instead playing a work together that demands the same degree of instrumental virtuosity along with the experience of a chamber music players. Moreover, Lisa Batiashvili and Gautier Capuçon have played Brahms’s Double Concerto together many times, and their appearance at the Rudolfinum with the Czech Philharmonic will be recorded and released by the DECCA label.

Brahms dedicated his Double Concerto to his friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim, as a sign of the renewal of their lifelong friendship, which had been disrupted by Joachim’s divorce when Brahms took sides with Joachim’s wife Amalie. For the concerto’s dedication, Brahms wrote the sentence: “To him, for whom it was written”. So that there could be no doubt about who was meant, he used the musical motif A-E-F, a permutation of the anagram of Joachim’s personal motto F-A-E: Frei aber einsam – Free but Lonesome.