Program on August 21, 2007
All- Schubert Program
Symphony no 7 in B minor D 759 Unfinished
Symphony no 8 in C major D 944 The Great

Frans Brüggen - conductor
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century

Program on August 22, 2007
All- Beethoven program
Coriolan Overture
Piano Concerto No. 4
Symphony No. 5

Frans Brüggen - conductor
Kristian Bezuidenhout - piano
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century


Photo by Chantal Wouters

About Frans Brüggen and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
Once the world’s most famous recorder player, today Frans Brüggen is considered among the foremost experts in the performance of eighteenth century music. He was born in Amsterdam and studied musicology at the university there. At age 21, he was appointed professor at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and later held the position as Erasmus Professor at Harvard University, and Regents Professor at the University of Berkeley. Yet, as Luciano Berio wrote, he is “a musician who is not an archeologist but a great artist.”

In 1981, he founded the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, which consists of some sixty members from nineteen different countries. The musicians, who are all specialists in eighteenth and early nineteenth century music, play on period instruments, or on contemporary copies. The wide-ranging repertory this orchestra has recorded for Philips Classics includes works by Purcell, Bach, Rameau, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert & Mendelssohn. Many of their recordings have received international awards.

Frans Brüggen’s conducting activities in recent seasons have included collaborations with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Hamburg Philharmonic, the Oslo Philharmonic, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zürich, the Stockholm Philharmonic and the English Chamber Orchestra. Recent operatic engagements included Mozart’s Mitridate, Re di Ponte in Zürich and Gluck’s Orfeo with the Opéra de Lyon. At the Tanglewood the orchestra will perform Schubert and Beethoven programs.