Katia & Marielle Labèque and Fabien Gabel in Poulenc and Strauss

The Grafenegg Festival opens in style with a programme contrasting Poulenc's brilliantly energetic and eclectic Concerto for Two Pianos with Richard Strauss’s mighty Alpensinfonie. For the concerto, Fabien Gabel and the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich are joined by two of the work's most brilliant exponents, the sisters Katia & Marielle Labèque – a celebrated duo partnership for over half a century. Strauss's symphony is one of the great orchestral showpieces, which both vividly describes a day's mountain climbing and explores man's unfathomable relationship with nature. A perfect work for Grafenegg's open-air Wolkenturm stage, it's set to ensure that the programme's second half will be as thrilling as it is moving.