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María Dueñas' prowess as a violinist made her an international sensation before the age of 20. After several competition wins, one of which earned the loan of a Stradivarius violin, Dueñas was signed to the Deutsche Grammophon label in 2022 and issued her debut album there, Beethoven and Beyond, the following year. She is also a composer and chamber musician.

María Dueñas Fernández was born on December 4, 2002, in Granada, Spain. Dueñas began musical lessons in Granada at age five, earning a scholarship from Juventudes Musicales Madrid in 2014 to study at the Carl Maria von Weber College of Music in Dresden. She then moved to Austria to study with Boris Kuschnir at the Music and Arts University of Vienna and the University of Graz. In 2016, her piano piece, Farewell, earned a prize at the Von fremden Ländern und Menschen Competition for Young Composers. The piece was recorded for a short film starring Dueñas and performed by Evgeny Sinaiski. She has also composed her own cadenzas for concertos by Mozart and Beethoven. Dueñas won the 2018 Vladimir Spivakov International Violin Competition, which brought with it a Riccardo Antoniazzi violin. Several successes followed, including winning the 2021 Getting to Carnegie Hall Competition and the Viktor Tretyakov International Violin Competition. Perhaps her most notable success also took place that year, when she won first prize and the audience prize at the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists. With the Menuhin Competition win, Dueñas was loaned a Stradivarius violin from the private collection of Jonathan Moulds. She also performs on a Nicolò Gagliano instrument from 1734 and the "Camposelice" Stradivarius from 1710.

As a chamber musician, Dueñas has performed with pianist Itamar Golan, cellist Pablo Ferrández, and violinist Renaud Capuçon, among others. She has appeared as a soloist with orchestras throughout the world, such as the Toronto, Detroit, and Pittsburgh Symphonies, the NDR Elbphilharmonie, and the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg. She was named a BBC New Generation Artist for the 2021-2023 seasons and is the dedicatee of several works, including solo caprices by Jordi Cervelló and Gabriela Ortiz's Violin Concerto "Altar de Cuerda," which she premiered with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel in May of 2022. That year, Dueñas signed an exclusive recording contract with the Deutsche Grammophon label and issued her debut there, Beethoven and Beyond, in 2023. Recorded live with Manfred Honeck and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the album features Beethoven's Violin Concerto with cadenzas written by Dueñas. Along with the concerto are works by Kreisler, Saint-Saëns, Spohr, Wieniawski, and Ysaÿe, as well as cadenzas written by those composers for the Beethoven concerto. ~ Keith Finke

The events of Beethoven's life are the stuff of Romantic legend, evoking images of the solitary creator shaking his fist at Fate and finally overcoming it through a supreme effort of creative will. His compositions, which frequently pushed the boundaries of tradition and startled audiences with their originality and power, are considered by many to be the foundation of 19th century musical principles.

Born in the small German city of Bonn on or around December 16, 1770, he received his early training from his father and other local musicians. As a teenager, he earned some money as an assistant to his teacher, Christian Gottlob Neefe, then was granted half of his father's salary as court musician from the Electorate of Cologne in order to care for his two younger brothers as his father gave in to alcoholism. Beethoven played viola in various orchestras, becoming friends with other players such as Antoine Reicha, Nikolaus Simrock, and Franz Ries, and began taking on composition commissions. As a member of the court chapel orchestra, he was able to travel some and meet members of the nobility, one of whom, Count Ferdinand Waldstein, would become a great friend and patron to him. Beethoven moved to Vienna in 1792 to study with Haydn; despite the prickliness of their relationship, Haydn's concise humor helped form Beethoven's style. His subsequent teachers in composition were Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and Antonio Salieri. In 1794, he began his career in earnest as a pianist and composer, taking advantage whenever he could of the patronage of others. Around 1800, Beethoven began to notice his gradually encroaching deafness. His growing despondency only intensified his antisocial tendencies. However, the Symphony No. 3, "Eroica," of 1803 began a sustained period of groundbreaking creative triumph. In later years, Beethoven was plagued by personal difficulties, including a series of failed romances and a nasty custody battle over a nephew, Karl. Yet after a long period of comparative compositional inactivity lasting from about 1811 to 1817, his creative imagination triumphed once again over his troubles. Beethoven's late works, especially the last five of his 16 string quartets and the last four of his 32 piano sonatas, have an ecstatic quality in which many have found a mystical significance. Beethoven died in Vienna on March 26, 1827.

Beethoven's epochal career is often divided into early, middle, and late periods, represented, respectively, by works based on Classic-period models, by revolutionary pieces that expanded the vocabulary of music, and by compositions written in a unique, highly personal musical language incorporating elements of contrapuntal and variation writing while approaching large-scale forms with complete freedom. Though certainly subject to debate, these divisions point to the immense depth and multifariousness of Beethoven's creative personality. Beethoven profoundly transformed every genre he touched, and the music of the 19th century seems to grow from his compositions as if from a chrysalis. A formidable pianist, he moved the piano sonata from the drawing room to the concert hall with such ambitious and virtuosic middle-period works as the "Waldstein" (No. 21) and "Appassionata" (No. 23) sonatas. His song cycle An die ferne Geliebte of 1816 set the pattern for similar cycles by all the Romantic song composers, from Schubert to Wolf. The Romantic tradition of descriptive or "program" music began with Beethoven's "Pastoral" Symphony No. 6. Even in the second half of the 19th century, Beethoven still directly inspired both conservatives (such as Brahms, who, like Beethoven, fundamentally stayed within the confines of Classical form) and radicals (such as Wagner, who viewed the Ninth Symphony as a harbinger of his own vision of a total art work, integrating vocal and instrumental music with the other arts). In many ways revolutionary, Beethoven's music remains universally appealing because of its characteristic humanism and dramatic power. ~ Rovi Staff

The Wiener Symphoniker (Vienna Symphony Orchestra) is a mainstay in European orchestral music, having premiered works that have become standard repertoire in the orchestral world. While its older neighbor, the Wiener Philharmoniker, may get more attention, the Wiener Symphoniker has cemented its role as a world-class orchestra.

The Wiener Symphoniker was founded in 1900 as the Wiener Concertverein. The founder and first conductor of the orchestra was Ferdinand Löwe, who established the new orchestra to present more concerts to the citizenry and for the performance of new compositions. The orchestra's premiere concert took place at the Wiener Musikverein on October 30, 1900. Löwe, a student of Anton Bruckner's, led the Wiener Symphoniker in the premiere of Bruckner's ninth symphony in 1903. In 1913, the orchestra moved its performing venue to the newly opened Wiener Konzerthaus. Due to financial concerns following World War I, the orchestra merged with the Wiener Tonkünstlerorchester in 1919. Löwe served as chief conductor until 1925. He was followed by Otto Gottesmann and Wilhelm Furtwängler. In 1933, the orchestra was renamed the Wiener Symphoniker. Oswald Kabasta led the orchestra from 1934-1938. Under Kabasta, the orchestra embarked on its first international tour to England and Italy. In 1938, following the invasion of Austria, the orchestra was brought under municipal control and was used for propaganda during World War II. The orchestra was disbanded in September of 1944.

Following the war, the Wiener Symphoniker was re-established in 1945 and gave its first post-war concert in September under the leadership of Hans Swarowsky and Josef Krips. Since 1946, the orchestra has taken part in and been a major sponsor of the Bregenzer Festspiele. Herbert von Karajan (1950-1960) and Wolfgang Sawallisch (1960-1970) are credited most with the revival of the Viennese sound for which the Wiener Symphoniker is known. In 1962, the Theater an der Wien reopened, and the Wiener Symphoniker has since performed there for staged productions. Since Sawallisch, the chief conductors for the orchestra have included Carlo Maria Giulini (1973-1976), Gennady Rozhdestvensky (1981-1983), and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (1991-1996). Philippe Jordan became the chief conductor in 2014, with a contract running through 2021. In 2018, the Wiener Symphoniker announced Andrés Orozco-Estrada as its next chief conductor. Orozco-Estrada is set to take the baton in 2021. Among the illustrious names who have guest conducted the orchestra are Leonard Bernstein, Zubin Mehta, and Claudio Abbado.

The Wiener Symphoniker can be heard on hundreds of albums on major labels such as Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, and Orfeo, among many others. Since 2012, the orchestra has also recorded for its own Wiener Symphoniker label, on which it has recorded works by composers such as Mahler, Bruckner, and Berlioz. Under Jordan, the orchestra has recorded a full cycle of Beethoven's symphonies. The first, Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3, was released in 2017. The final two individual albums of this cycle, Symphonies Nos. 6 & 8 and Symphony No. 9, as well as the complete cycle set, were released in 2019. ~ Keith Finke

Conductor Manfred Honeck's conducting career rapidly grew through the 1990s after he learned conducting from the inside as an orchestral musician. He has been the conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony since 2008 and has instituted a vigorous recording program with that group.

Born September 17, 1958, in Nenzing, Austria, Honeck received his musical training at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna. After graduation, he took a position as a violist with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, making him eligible for membership in the Vienna Philharmonic; that group accepted him. He began working as a conductor with the Vienna Youth Orchestra. In 1987, conductor Claudio Abbado invited Honeck to assist him in conducting the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in Vienna. His breakthrough performance was at the Gustav Mahler Festival in Kassel in 1989, conducting the centenary performance of the world premiere of Mahler's Symphony No. 1 in D major ("Titan").

Honeck made his operatic debut with the Vienna Volksoper in 1989, leading Johann Strauss Jr.'s Die Fledermaus. Later in the season, he was invited to lead the company in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro and Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia. In 1990, he was invited to conduct the gala concert of the Vienna Philharmonic commemorating the 75th anniversary of the dedication of the Wiener Konzerthaus. Other conducting opportunities quickly opened up: he led the Berlin State Orchestra, the Berlin State Opera at the Unter den Linden Theater, and the Hamburg State Opera. At the latter position, he was again standing in Mahler's footprints when he led the official Mahler production of Mozart's Così fan tutte. In 1991, Honeck received a five-year contract with the Zürich Opera House as First Kapellmeister. There, he added Massenet's Hérodiade and Giordano's operas Fedora and Andrea Chénier to his credits and conducted the first performance of Herbert Willi's Schlafes Bruder. A high point of this early part of his career was his debut at Salzburg, conducting the Vienna Philharmonic during the Mozart Week of 1994.

In 1996, Honeck became the chief conductor of the MDR (Central German Radio) Symphony Orchestra of Leipzig. In 1997, he was appointed music director of the Norwegian National Opera, and in 1998, he was named the principal guest conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic. In the 1990s and early 2000s, he led a variety of ensembles in recordings, including the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra; with the latter, he issued a recording of Allan Pettersson's Symphony No. 12 on the CPO label in 2006. He was the chief conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra (2000-2006) and music director of the Staatsoper Stuttgart (2007-2011).

In 2008, Honeck began a tenure with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra that has been extended through the mid-2020s. With the Pittsburgh Symphony, Honeck has recorded for Exton Classics and for the orchestra's in-house Reference Recordings label. He has continued to specialize in late Romantic repertory, recording several Mahler symphonies, Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 for Reference in 2015, and suites from Richard Strauss' Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier for the same label the following year. In 2017, Reference Recordings released the Honeck/Pittsburgh recording of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47, powerfully coupled with Barber's Adagio for Strings. Honeck's 2019 album Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 with the Pittsburgh Symphony was nominated for a Grammy Award. Honeck and the orchestra remained busy through the COVID-19 pandemic, issuing recordings of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 in 2021 and Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 ("Pastoral"), in 2022 on Reference Recordings, among other works. ~ James Manheim