Zubin Mehta: last concert of the 86th Festival del Maggio
On Thursday, June 13th at 8pm, maestro Zubin Mehta on the podium of the Mehta Hall - leading the Maggio Orchestra and Chorus - for the last symphonic concert of the 86th edition of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Festival.
The music of Hugo Wolf, Frédéric Chopin and Antonín Dvořák is on the programme.
On the piano, Alexander Gadjiev.
The concert will be broadcast live on Rai Radio 3
We thank Ferragamo for its support of the 86th Festival del Maggio
We inform the audience that the show is sold out
Florence, June 12th 2024 – Exactly after two months of intense opera and symphonic programming, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Festival, which began on 13 April, comes to an end: on Thursday, June 13th at 8pm, in the Hall named after him, the director emeritus for life Zubin Mehta on the podium, leading the Maggio Orchestra and Chorus, for the final choral symphonic concert of the 86th edition of the Festival.The master of the Maggio Chorus is Lorenzo Fratini.
Maestro Mehta's concert - just a few days before the two prestigious tours in which he will be the protagonist, together with the Orchestra and Coro del Maggio, first in China in Tianjin and in Beijing (June 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and then in July at the Ljubljana Festival) – also marks another sell-out for this edition of the Maggio Festival.
On the bill, opening the evening, the gothic ballad Der Feuerreiter by Hugo Wolf, taken from his collection Zwölf Lieder nach Gedichten von Eduard Mörike and composed in 1892: the song narrates the mad race of a mysterious 'knight of fire' called to tame the fire of a mill where he will find his death.
It follows one of the most beloved compositions of Frédéric Chopin, the Concerto n. 2 in F minor for piano and orchestra op. 21: it was written between 1829 and the beginning of 1830 and performed for the first time in Warsaw on 17 March of the same year, when Chopin had recently turned 19. Even though the score bears the dedication to Countess Delphine Potocka, Concerto no. 2 was inspired by the composer's platonic love for Konstancja Gladkowoska, a singing student at the Warsaw Conservatory.
Protagonist on piano in Concerto n. 2 Alexander Gadjiev: among the most talented pianists on the international scene and winner of numerous awards during his already intense career - including the first prize at the Sydney International Competition 2021, the Terence Judd Award 2022, the Monte Carlo "World Piano Masters ” and the 42nd Abbiati Award for best soloist for the year 2022 – he is making his absolute debut at the Teatro del Maggio.Gadjiev plays a Shigeru Kawai SK-EX piano.
The concert closes with the Symphony n. 7 in D minor op. 70 by Antonín Dvořák: this was born at the time of its author's first international successes; and it was the London Philharmonic Society that commissioned this new symphony from the Bohemian master in the wake of the successes obtained during a series of concerts in the English capital in 1884, a city where Dvořák was known and esteemed above all for the orchestral transposition of the Slavic Dances, distinctly folkloristic compositions and particularly appreciated by the English public.
The program:
Hugo Wolf
From Mörike Lieder: “Der Feuerreiter”
Like other composers from the Germanic area, Hugo Wolf also passionately dedicated himself to Lied, the genre that more than any other represented the ideal meeting point between music and poetry. Almost all of his artistic production is represented by Lieder, over three hundred pages often inspired collectively by individual authors such as Mörike, Eichendorff, Goethe. Among these, the name of Eduard Mörike stands out without a doubt with fifty-three texts all set to music in 1888, a particularly happy and productive year for the Austrian composer. It was Wolf himself who declared that it was Mörike who opened the doors of the Lied to him with the beauty of the poetic word. In the collection of the Zwölf Lieder nach Gedichten von Eduard Mörike a prominent place is occupied by the gothic ballad Der Feuerreiter, of which Wolf also prepared a version for choir and orchestra in 1892. The ballad, which takes on the contours of a macabre dance in the perfect symbiosis between musical descriptivism and symbolism, narrates the mad rush of a mysterious 'fire knight' called to put out the fire in a mill where he will meet his death.
Frédéric Chopin
Concert no. 2 in F minor op. 21
Work by a nineteen-year-old Chopin, Concerto no. 2 in F minor op. 21 was composed between 1829 and early 1830 and first performed in Warsaw on 17 March of the same year. Even though the score bears the dedication to Countess Delphine Potocka, Concerto no. 2 was inspired by the composer's platonic love for Konstancja Gladkowoska, a singing student at the Warsaw Conservatory. In the first movement, Maestoso, after the orchestral exposition the piano makes its entrance which, with an improvisational performance, becomes the absolute protagonist of the musical discourse, leaving the orchestra only the accompaniment function. In the Larghetto Chopin abandons himself to a dreamy and sentimental phrasing of melodramatic origin while in the final Allegro he chooses to open the concert with the enthralling rhythm of the mazurka, a Polish dance of popular origin that rightfully entered nineteenth-century salons. In addition to being Chopin's favourite, who performed it more frequently than Concerto no. 1, the Concerto in F minor was also among the favorite pages of Clara Schumann who interpreted it throughout her career.
Antonín Dvořák
Symphony no. 7 in D minor op. 70
An exemplary synthesis of cultured tradition and Slavic popular spirit, Symphony no. 7 in D minor, op. 70 by Antonín Dvořák was born at the time of the author's first international successes. It was the London Philharmonic Society that commissioned this new symphony from the Bohemian master, in the wake of the successes obtained during a series of concerts in the English capital in 1884, where Dvořák was known and esteemed above all for the orchestral transposition of the Slavic Dances, pages with markedly folk songs particularly appreciated by the English public. Created in the space of a few months, between December 1884 and March 1885, Symphony no. 7 debuted at St. James Hall in London on 22 April 1885 under the direction of the author. Close to Brahms' symphonic model - whose Third Symphony Dvořák had listened to shortly before and was strongly impressed - Symphony no. 7 shows an austere and balanced character, especially in the first movement, but also typically Slavic traits found in the expanded melodies that animate the second movement (Poco Adagio), in the wild Bohemian dance rhythm of the Scherzo, up to the gypsy and passionate theme that gives life and the final Allegro closes triumphantly.