Mozart & Brahms

The Spanish conductor with “more [charisma] than anybody else” ( Bachtrack ), reunites with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for his first-ever performance on the Hollywood Bowl stage. Roberto González-Monjas leads Brahms’ fourth and final symphony, a tragic yet profound piece that critic Eduard Hanslick compared to a dark well: “The longer we look into it, the more brightly the stars shine back.” Also making his Bowl debut, 27-year-old pianist Mao Fujita performs Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 19, which features what might be the most complex finale the composer ever wrote. Bachtrack posed the question: “Is there a more movingly consummate Mozart pianist performing today than Mao Fujita?” His playing is “whimsically improvisatory-sounding and silky-smooth; pearly, precisely defined articulation; and sounding miraculously gracefully, airily unfettered to an instrument of wood, iron, hammers and steel.”