National Academy of Santa Cecilia / Vienna in Rome (with surprise)
On November 4th, before the weekly concert (which is repeated three times) scheduled at the symphony of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia. The program was conceived as an evening in which the music and atmospheres of Vienna at the turn of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were brought to Rome. The central piece is much awaited: the rarely performed “Concerto for Violin and Orchestra” by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The violinist who was to perform it, Veronika Eberle, falls ill and forfeits. Another violinist was called up: Giuseppe Gipponi, twenty years old, from Salerno, the first Italian in 24 years to win (less than a month ago) the coveted Paganini Prize. Gipponi does not know Korngold’s piece (and cannot learn it in a few hours): complete with a run with “the concert for violin and orchestra” by Pëtr Il’ič Tchaikovsky – that the Santa Cecilia Symphony Orchestra is well acquainted with and in any case has a connection with Vienna, where the first performance took place.
Only one rehearsal before the concert. Gipponi triumphs; to the ovations and insistent requests for an encore, he offers a “whim” by Paganini. Free ovations. Gipponi responds with a second “whim” from Paganini. On the podium, another young man, the 31-year-old Lorenzo Viotti, but already established (he is the principal conductor of the National Orchestra of the Netherlands), son of the never too late Marcello Viotti, of whom I still remember a memorable conductor Thais and a splendid one Ariadne in Naxos. A winning combination and an evening that began with some fear and ended with great success, even as the public of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia is returning and the hall was quite full.
The evening began with the overture de Die Fledermaus (Il Pipistre) by Johan Stras jr, one of the best known Austrian operettas, the only one staged (every December 31st) at the Vienna State Opera. Viotti, who I had already listened to in Salzburg where he won the Nestlé competition for young conductors years ago, underlined the ambiguity of the piece which under a sparkling and joyful aspect is imbued with nostalgia for an era that has come to an end.
The “Concerto for Violin and Orchestra ”in D major op. 35 is the only one violin concerto from Pëtr Il’ič Tchaikovsky. It is also very well known because it is used in films The concert from Radu Mihăileanu, A lovely infidel from Howard Zieff, And Together with you from Chen Kaige.
It was completed in early 1878 a Clarens, At Montreux, with the collaboratestion of violinist Iosif Kotek, who had advised given on the technical execution of the concert and was also to be the first performer, proposed by Tchaikovsky himself, but at the last moment he gave up due to technical difficulties. Another great concert artist, the famous Leopold Auer, to whom the composition was initially dedicated, read the score that it was unplayable and in turn refused to play it. The first execution therefore took place three years later, on 4 December 1881 a Vienna, when the violinist in great difficulty Adol’f Brodsky he agreed to perform the concert. Tchaikovsky dedicated the score to him. The conducting was entrusted to Hans Richter. At the first performance, it was not appreciated but today there is no public that can resist the seductive force of this piece of about half an hour divided into three movements (allegro moderato, song: andante, allegro vivacissimo). I recalled the difficulties he had Tchaikovsky in finding a violinist “at the height” to underline the virtuosity required in the dialogue between soloist and orchestra not only in the reckless finale but also in the melancholy of the andante and in the play of variations in the first movement. Great harmony between Gibboni, Viotti and the orchestra.
In the second part, Viotti and the orchestra faced two well-known pieces: the suite from Der Rosenkavalier written by Richard Strauss in the last years of World War II e La Valse composed by Ravel in 1920. The first is a synthesis of the 1911 “comedy in music” revised 35 years later: waltz-time joy mixed with nostalgia for a time that was dreamed of but never existed. The second is also steeped in nostalgia as a tribute to the world that disappeared with the First World War. Viotti and the orchestra rendered them beautifully.
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