Concerts in Bucharest GIUSEPPE PENNISI listens to Russian orchestral music at the George Enescu Festival The George Enescu Festival 2017 included some eighty concerts by some of the world's major symphony orchestras, as well as by important chamber music ensembles. During my short stay in Bucharest, I was able to catch two first-rate concerts on the same day, 14 September. At four thirty in the afternoon, in the lovely Romanian Atheneum, I listened to London's Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy with violinist Michael Barenboim (one of the sons of conductor and pianistDaniel Barenboim) as soloist, At seven thirty in the evening, in the nearby Great Hall, the Filarmonica della Scala conducted by Riccardo Chailly, with David Garrett on violin. They were both sold out. The Atheneum seats about a thousand. The Great Hall some four thousand, but some two hundred people were standing on the side of the Hall or sitting on the steps in between the stalls. The programs included mostly music by Russian composers: Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich. An additional point of interest was to listen to Dmitri Shostakovich's tenth and twelfth symphonies, in the same afternoon and evening — the former an explosion of joy for Stalin's death; the latter a meditation on Lenin's accomplishments and on the preparation for the 1917 October Revolution. Thus the afternoon started in the Atheneum with Sergei Prokofiev's first concerto for violin and orchestra, which is part of the great concerto literature of the twentieth century. Initiated in the dramatic year of 1917 and completed in a few months, its first performance was in 1923 in Paris, where the composer had emigrated. The concerto has only a formal innovation: the inversion of the first two movements as compared with the traditional structure. Ashkenazy and Barenboim delivered a reading full of passion, with emphasis on the final crescendo where the soloist recalls the initial part and the cantabile in the second movement. At the audience's insistence, Michael Barenboim concluded the first part of the concert with three short bravura pieces as encores.
Michael Barenboim at the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest. Photo © 2017 Cătălina Filip. Click on the image for higher resolution Shostakovich's tenth symphony was composed after Stalin's death (5 March 1953) and performed on 17 December of the same year in the city most loved by the composer, then named Leningrad. Ashkenazy and the orchestra underlined the grandiose architecture and the sign of the definitive victory of the musician. In the concert hall, many Romanians probably felt similar sentiments with reference to Ceausescu's end.
Vladimir Ashkenazy with the Philharmonia Orchestra at the George Enescu Festival. Photo
© 2017 Cătălina Filip. Click on the image for higher resolution The Filamonica della Scala concert was in two distinct parts. The first was the well-known Concerto in D for violin and orchestra by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The soloist was David Garrett, a cross-over star whose repertory goes from rock to Beatles to Paganini. Riccardo Chailly was the conductor. There were three short encores by David Garrett and ten minutes of ovations before the intermission.
David Garrett with the Orchestra della Scala at the George Enescu Festival. Photo © 2017 Andrei Gîndac. Click on the image for higher resolution The second part was Shostakovich's twelfth symphony, named 'The year 1917'. It deals with Lenin more than with the October Revolution. I much prefer the seventh symphony named 'Leningrad' on the composer's love for his own city during the nine month siege by the Germans. Chailly and the Filarmonica della Scala made me appreciate the twelfth symphony, especially the concise third movement with the gun shot against the Winter Palace. To the audience ovation, Chailly and the orchestra responded with the overture from Giuseppe Verdi's Les vêpres siciliennes. Copyright © 21 September 2017 Giuseppe Pennisi, Rome, Italy GEORGE ENESCU FESTIVAL ROMANIA PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA RICCARDO CHAILLY SERGEI PROKOFIEV PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH GIUSEPPE VERDI RUSSIA ITALY ORCHESTRAL MUSIC VIOLIN MUSIC << M&V home Concert reviews Mathis der Maler >> Concerts in Bucharest GIUSEPPE PENNISI listens to Russian orchestral music at the George Enescu Festival The George Enescu Festival 2017 included some eighty concerts by some of the world's major symphony orchestras, as well as by important chamber music ensembles. During my short stay in Bucharest, I was able to catch two first-rate concerts on the same day, 14 September. At four thirty in the afternoon, in the lovely Romanian Atheneum, I listened to London's Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy with violinist Michael Barenboim (one of the sons of conductor and pianistDaniel Barenboim) as soloist, At seven thirty in the evening, in the nearby Great Hall, the Filarmonica della Scala conducted by Riccardo Chailly, with David Garrett on violin. They were both sold out. The Atheneum seats about a thousand. The Great Hall some four thousand, but some two hundred people were standing on the side of the Hall or sitting on the steps in between the stalls. The programs included mostly music by Russian composers: Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich. An additional point of interest was to listen to Dmitri Shostakovich's tenth and twelfth symphonies, in the same afternoon and evening — the former an explosion of joy for Stalin's death; the latter a meditation on Lenin's accomplishments and on the preparation for the 1917 October Revolution. Thus the afternoon started in the Atheneum with Sergei Prokofiev's first concerto for violin and orchestra, which is part of the great concerto literature of the twentieth
century. Initiated in the dramatic year of 1917 and completed in a few months, its first performance was in 1923 in Paris, where the composer had emigrated. The concerto has only a formal innovation: the inversion of the first two movements as compared with the traditional structure. Ashkenazy and Barenboim delivered a reading full of passion, with emphasis on the final crescendo where the soloist recalls the initial part and the cantabile in the second movement. At the audience's insistence, Michael Barenboim concluded the first part of the concert with three short bravura pieces as encores.
Michael Barenboim at the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest. Photo © 2017 Cătălina Filip. Click on the image for higher resolution Shostakovich's tenth symphony was composed after Stalin's death (5 March 1953) and performed on 17 December of the same year in the city most loved by the composer, then named Leningrad. Ashkenazy and the orchestra underlined the grandiose architecture and the sign of the definitive victory of the musician. In the concert hall, many Romanians probably felt similar sentiments with reference to Ceausescu's end.
Vladimir Ashkenazy with the Philharmonia Orchestra at the George Enescu Festival. Photo © 2017 Cătălina Filip. Click on the image for higher resolution The Filamonica della Scala concert was in two distinct parts. The first was the well-known Concerto in D for violin and orchestra by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The soloist was David Garrett, a cross-over star whose repertory goes from rock to Beatles to Paganini. Riccardo Chailly was the conductor. There were three short encores by David Garrett and ten minutes of ovations before the intermission.
David Garrett with the Orchestra della Scala at the George Enescu Festival. Photo © 2017 Andrei Gîndac. Click on the image for higher resolution The second part was Shostakovich's twelfth symphony, named 'The year 1917'. It deals with Lenin more than with the October Revolution. I much prefer the seventh symphony named 'Leningrad' on the composer's love for his own city during the nine
month siege by the Germans. Chailly and the Filarmonica della Scala made me appreciate the twelfth symphony, especially the concise third movement with the gun shot against the Winter Palace. To the audience ovation, Chailly and the orchestra responded with the overture from Giuseppe Verdi's Les vêpres siciliennes. Copyright © 21 September 2017 Giuseppe Pennisi, Rome, Italy GEORGE ENESCU FESTIVAL ROMANIA PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA RICCARDO CHAILLY SERGEI PROKOFIEV PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH GIUSEPPE VERDI RUSSIA ITALY ORCHESTRAL MUSIC VIOLIN MUSIC << M&V home Concert reviews Mathis der Maler >>
Michael Barenboim at the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest. Photo © 2017 Cătălina Filip. Click on the image for higher resolution Shostakovich's tenth symphony was composed after Stalin's death (5 March 1953) and performed on 17 December of the same year in the city most loved by the composer, then named Leningrad. Ashkenazy and the orchestra underlined the grandiose architecture and the sign of the definitive victory of the musician. In the concert hall, many Romanians probably felt similar sentiments with reference to Ceausescu's end.
Vladimir Ashkenazy with the Philharmonia Orchestra at the George Enescu Festival. Photo
© 2017 Cătălina Filip. Click on the image for higher resolution The Filamonica della Scala concert was in two distinct parts. The first was the well-known Concerto in D for violin and orchestra by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The soloist was David Garrett, a cross-over star whose repertory goes from rock to Beatles to Paganini. Riccardo Chailly was the conductor. There were three short encores by David Garrett and ten minutes of ovations before the intermission.
David Garrett with the Orchestra della Scala at the George Enescu Festival. Photo © 2017 Andrei Gîndac. Click on the image for higher resolution The second part was Shostakovich's twelfth symphony, named 'The year 1917'. It deals with Lenin more than with the October Revolution. I much prefer the seventh symphony named 'Leningrad' on the composer's love for his own city during the nine month siege by the Germans. Chailly and the Filarmonica della Scala made me appreciate the twelfth symphony, especially the concise third movement with the gun shot against the Winter Palace. To the audience ovation, Chailly and the orchestra responded with the overture from Giuseppe Verdi's Les vêpres siciliennes. Copyright © 21 September 2017 Giuseppe Pennisi, Rome, Italy GEORGE ENESCU FESTIVAL ROMANIA PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA RICCARDO CHAILLY SERGEI PROKOFIEV PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH GIUSEPPE VERDI RUSSIA ITALY ORCHESTRAL MUSIC VIOLIN MUSIC << M&V home Concert reviews Mathis der Maler >> Concerts in Bucharest GIUSEPPE PENNISI listens to Russian orchestral music at the George Enescu Festival The George Enescu Festival 2017 included some eighty concerts by some of the world's major symphony orchestras, as well as by important chamber music ensembles. During my short stay in Bucharest, I was able to catch two first-rate concerts on the same day, 14 September. At four thirty in the afternoon, in the lovely Romanian Atheneum, I listened to London's Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy with violinist Michael Barenboim (one of the sons of conductor and pianistDaniel Barenboim) as soloist, At seven thirty in the evening, in the nearby Great Hall, the Filarmonica della Scala conducted by Riccardo Chailly, with David Garrett on violin. They were both sold out. The Atheneum seats about a thousand. The Great Hall some four thousand, but some two hundred people were standing on the side of the Hall or sitting on the steps in between the stalls. The programs included mostly music by Russian composers: Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich. An additional point of interest was to listen to Dmitri Shostakovich's tenth and twelfth symphonies, in the same afternoon and evening — the former an explosion of joy for Stalin's death; the latter a meditation on Lenin's accomplishments and on the preparation for the 1917 October Revolution. Thus the afternoon started in the Atheneum with Sergei Prokofiev's first concerto for violin and orchestra, which is part of the great concerto literature of the twentieth
century. Initiated in the dramatic year of 1917 and completed in a few months, its first performance was in 1923 in Paris, where the composer had emigrated. The concerto has only a formal innovation: the inversion of the first two movements as compared with the traditional structure. Ashkenazy and Barenboim delivered a reading full of passion, with emphasis on the final crescendo where the soloist recalls the initial part and the cantabile in the second movement. At the audience's insistence, Michael Barenboim concluded the first part of the concert with three short bravura pieces as encores.
Michael Barenboim at the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest. Photo © 2017 Cătălina Filip. Click on the image for higher resolution Shostakovich's tenth symphony was composed after Stalin's death (5 March 1953) and performed on 17 December of the same year in the city most loved by the composer, then named Leningrad. Ashkenazy and the orchestra underlined the grandiose architecture and the sign of the definitive victory of the musician. In the concert hall, many Romanians probably felt similar sentiments with reference to Ceausescu's end.
Vladimir Ashkenazy with the Philharmonia Orchestra at the George Enescu Festival. Photo © 2017 Cătălina Filip. Click on the image for higher resolution The Filamonica della Scala concert was in two distinct parts. The first was the well-known Concerto in D for violin and orchestra by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The soloist was David Garrett, a cross-over star whose repertory goes from rock to Beatles to Paganini. Riccardo Chailly was the conductor. There were three short encores by David Garrett and ten minutes of ovations before the intermission.
David Garrett with the Orchestra della Scala at the George Enescu Festival. Photo © 2017 Andrei Gîndac. Click on the image for higher resolution The second part was Shostakovich's twelfth symphony, named 'The year 1917'. It deals with Lenin more than with the October Revolution. I much prefer the seventh symphony named 'Leningrad' on the composer's love for his own city during the nine
month siege by the Germans. Chailly and the Filarmonica della Scala made me appreciate the twelfth symphony, especially the concise third movement with the gun shot against the Winter Palace. To the audience ovation, Chailly and the orchestra responded with the overture from Giuseppe Verdi's Les vêpres siciliennes. Copyright © 21 September 2017 Giuseppe Pennisi, Rome, Italy GEORGE ENESCU FESTIVAL ROMANIA PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA RICCARDO CHAILLY SERGEI PROKOFIEV PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH GIUSEPPE VERDI RUSSIA ITALY ORCHESTRAL MUSIC VIOLIN MUSIC << M&V home Concert reviews Mathis der Maler >>
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento