Michele Spotti: symphonic concert on December 13th at 8 pm and on December 14th at 6 pm
Double symphonic concert at the Teatro del Maggio: on Friday 13th at 8pm and on Saturday, December 14th 2024 at 6pm in Zubin Mehta Hall, Michele Spotti at the helm of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Orchestra and Chorus.
On the programme "Die erste Walpurgisnacht" by Felix-Mendelssohn Bartholdy and the Symphony No. 5 by Pëtr Il'ič Čajkovskij.
Florence, December 9th, 2024 - Friday 13th and Saturday 14th December 2024 - at 8 pm and 6 pm - a double symphonic concert is in programme in the Zubin Mehta Hall: leading the Teatro del Maggio Orchestra and Choir, maestro Michele Spotti. The master of the Maggio Choir is Lorenzo Fratini.
Master Spotti, on his debut on the podium of Maggio, studied violin and composition at the "Verdi Conservatory" in Milan, graduating under the guidance of Daniele Agiman. He then perfected at the "Haute École de musique" in Geneva: he recently made his debut at the Paris Opera with Turandot, at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples with Simon Boccanegra, at the Arena di Verona again with Turandot by Puccini (which inaugurated the 101st edition of the Festival), at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma with Die Zauberflöte, at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin with Il viaggio a Reims and at the Wiener Staatsoper with La fille du régiment. He will also leading the opera Norma by Vincenzo Bellini, which will be staged during the next opera season at Teatro del Maggio, with performances starting from March 9th, 2025.
The double concert will feature two symphonic compositions: the concert opens with Die erste Walpurgisnacht, " Walpurga Night", sung for solos, choir and orchestra by Felix-Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Finished in 1841, it was one of the most demanding and complex projects of the composer of Hamburg: the title comes from the popular legend that tells that on the night between 30 April and 1 May, feast of Saint Walpurga, On the top of the Brocken in the Harz massif, sacrilegious ceremonies were celebrated (the pagans of the early Middle Ages). Soloists in the performance, four talents of the Academy of May: Danbi Lee, contralto; Lorenzo Martelli, tenor; Yurii Strakhov, baritone and Huigang Liu, bass.
The concert ends with the famous Symphony n. 5 in E minor op. 64 by Pëtr Il'ič Čajkovskij: remaining faithful to the principle of the 4th Symphony, written more than ten years earlier, the Fifth was also born under the sign of "fatum"; Čajkovskij did not express in a detailed program the ideas that had guided him in composition, However, Symphony No. 5 also takes up the cyclic principle of the recurring idea or ‘motto’ from the Fourth, making it even more widely used, because a same theme, linked to fate, returns here in all four movements.
The programme:
FELIX-MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY
Die erste Walpurgisnacht, cantata for solos, choir and orchestra op. 60
The cantata for solo, choir and orchestra Die erste Walpurgisnacht op. 60 engaged Mendelssohn for a long time. Started in 1831 after obtaining the permission of Goethe, author of the text, was finished by the musician only ten years later. In Walpurgisnacht, a ballad composed by Goethe in 1799, the ancient pagan ceremony celebrated on the night between April 30th and May 1st, the feast of Saint Valpurga, is described. According to the ancient legend, pagan rites were held in the woods that night to celebrate the arrival of spring. Mendelssohn chose to remain faithful to the poet’s interpretation, emphasizing the various episodes of the text with contrasting musical means. The arrival of spring resounds solemn and majestic, for example, while the scene of the feigned ridda of the witches takes on accents of Dionysian intoxication, intensely spiritual is then the prayer of the priest of the druids after having put to flight the Christian soldiers. Among the many admirers of the opera was also Hector Berlioz who, impressed by the admirable way in which Mendelssohn had used poetry, defined the cantata as "a score of impeccable clarity, despite the complexity of the writing".
PËTR IL'IČ ČAJKOVSKIJ
Symphony No. 5 in E minor op. 64
Ten years after the Fourth Symphony, in 1888 Čajkovskij returns to confront himself again with the theme of destiny, which is also the inspiration for the Fifth. The performance of the Symphony n. 5 op. 64, directed by the same author in November 1888 in St. Petersburg, is welcomed by the public but less so by critics. Čajkovskij begins to doubt the validity of his last work, judging it inferior to the previous work, except then to recant after the successes reported by his last symphony in the concerts of the European tour of the following year. Although there is no real programme, some brief thoughts are present at the margin of the score that allude to the theme of man’s struggle against adverse fate. According to the model codified by Berlioz, the Symphony no. 5 is built on the cyclic principle of the recurring thematic idea that connects the four movements. The motto of destiny is presented for the first time in the Andante, which slowly and gently introduces the first movement. The second movement has some melodies of unquestionable beauty, with the solos of the horn and oboe that warm the heart like a 'flash of light'; but the serenity is only apparent because fate reappears with its motto, This time intoned by the trombones. In the elegant Valse you breathe worldly air that delays the inevitable reckoning at the end. Here the motto reappears but in a greater tonality: totally transfigured and emptied of its negative charge no longer inspires fear and the great aural triumph of the orchestra emphatically confirms its defeat.