CONCERTS 2026 | JOY – Sunday with Beethoven
ROTEM NIR / FRANCESCO MARIA PARAZZOLI
BLOCH Prayer for cello and orchestra
VIVALDI Concerto in E minor for cello and orchestra
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 2 in D major, op. 36
Director
Rotem Nir
Cello
Francesco Maria Parazzoli
Program
Ernest Bloch
Prayer for cello and orchestra
Converging in the music of Swiss-American Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) is a strong feeling for nature and, above all, intense meditation on the soul of Jewish religiosity, as evidenced by the three-piece cycle From Jewish Life of 1924, written for cello and piano and later orchestrated in various arrangements. The first of these pieces, Prayer, has the flavor of an intense prayer captured inside an Ashkenazi synagogue.
Antonio Vivaldi
Concerto in E minor for cello and orchestra
Between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the cello was beginning to dominate the musical scene not only as an accompanying instrument but also as a solo voice. It was Antonio Vivaldi himself who helped enhance the cello, dedicating no less than 27 concertos to it, in addition to a concerto with bassoon, one for two cellos, several works with cello obbligato, and nine sonatas with basso continuo. With these works, immediately recognizable for their typically Vivaldian rhythmic vein, the Red Priest elevated the instrument to a leading role in the music of his time, paving the way for later virtuosi, from the Bolognese Antonio Vandini to Luigi Boccherini.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 2 in D major op. 36
Between the end of the composition of the Second Symphony and its first public appearance, Beethoven walked on the brink of the abyss, amid emotional disappointments and the first symptoms of deafness: these were the desperate months of the “Heiligenstadt Testament,” the text that has gone down in history as a letter-confession addressed to brothers Kaspar Karl and Nikolaus Johann. How much of this anguish emerges from the Second Symphony? The horn warnings and sudden blasts of the timpani in the slow introduction do indeed seem to delineate an uneasy atmosphere, confirmed by that bright nervousness already anticipatory of certain Romantic atmospheres, which are then diluted in an irresistible scherzo and in the frenetic, spirit-filled finale, a masterpiece of vitality and inventiveness.
Orchestra of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna
Before each concert, listening keys by
Martino Ruggero Dondi
A Milanese musician and philosopher, with a diploma in piano and a degree in philosophy with honors, he works as a collaborating maestro, choral and orchestral conductor at important opera houses. In parallel, he devotes himself to musical and cultural popularization, collaborating with Italian and international theaters and festivals.
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