SYMPHONIC SEASON 2025
Donato Renzetti director
MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY | RAVEL
Director
PROGRAM
Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Symphony No. 4 in A major , op. 90 “Italian”
Maurice Ravel
“Pavane pour une infante défunte”
“Le tombeau de Couperin”
“Ma Mère l’Oye”
PROGRAM
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Symphony No. 4 in A major , op. 90 “Italian”
Felix Mendelssohn arrived in Italy in October 1830 following the routes of the Grand Tour that every German of excellent extraction had to take at least once in his life sooner or later. Although very young, Mendelssohn was already sufficiently established to be recognized: in the previous year he had already conducted the historic performance of Bach’s “Passion according to Matthew,” written the Overture for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and drafted the first thematic ideas for the overture “The Hebrides” and the “Scottish” Symphony, the “twin” of the Italian. In February 1831 the Wanderer was in Rome, where he wrote: “The Italiana makes great progress and will become the most pleasant piece I have done, especially the last movement. For the Adagio I have not yet decided anything and I think I will reserve it for Naples.” Excellent flair: with that compassed, almost march-like tempo, the second movement (Andante con moto) is a direct child of the impressions received during the religious processions seen in the streets of Naples, one of the most iconic pieces of the 19th century.
Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel
“Pavane pour une infante défunte”
In a France divided by the Dreyfus Affair, Ravel escaped the noise of the world by taking refuge in a slow 16th-century dance with a composed and solemn progression, the Pavane, evoking the image of a Renaissance Infanta just as Oscar Wilde had done in 1889 in the fairy tale “The Birthday of the Infanta.” With this page full of lyricism Ravel achieved his first great public success.
“Le tombeau de Couperin”
Let us leave it to Ravel: “At the beginning of 1915 I enlisted in the army; as a result of this my musical activity was interrupted until the fall of 1917, when I was reformed. I then finished “Le Tombeau de Couperin.” To tell the truth, the homage is addressed not so much to Couperin alone as to the entire French music of the 18th century.” The autobiographical summary must include the passing of his mother (1917) and the loss of numerous friends in the war. It is the same friends who watch over, each with a dedication, all six pieces of the “Tombeau.” This might make it sound like a triumph of death, but in fact it is a tribute to an artistic era that is still able to console and that, like departed loved ones, cannot return a second time.
“Ma Mère l’Oye”
Attracted, like Debussy, to the world of fairy tales, in 1908 Maurice Ravel wrote “Ma mère l’Oye” (My Mother the Goose), a collection of five pieces for piano four-hands, inspired by fairy tales of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries collected in Perrault’s anthology “Contes de ma Mère l’Oye.” The album was dedicated to little Jean and Mimie Godebsky, children of Ravel’s closest friends, but it proved too difficult for a domestic performance, however, and in the end Ravel prepared an orchestral version, which enhances the exoticisms and flamboyant sonorities, a true apotheosis of imagination.
PROGRAM
Hector Berlioz
Overture, “Le Carnaval Romain”
In 1844 Hector Berlioz, among the great fathers of French Romanticism and one of the greatest innovators in the symphonic field, wrote a concert piece in A major with an extensive solo part reserved for the English horn. Thus was born the Overture “Le Carnaval romain,” a brilliant piece of broad melodic generosity, full of themes from the opera Benvenuto Cellini, composed six years earlier. The themes of the opera used, in fact, are those related to the Roman carnival scenes from which the overture takes its title.
Claude Debussy
“Prèlude à l’après-midi d’un faune.”
The notes are released like sensual exhalations in “Prélude a l’après-midi d’un faune” (1892-94) Claude Debussy’s first great symphonic masterpiece, which is immediately presented with its “new breath” (Pierre Boulez’s definition) thanks to the flute’s enigmatic opening phrase, “so full of voluptuousness as to become anguished,” Vladimir Jankélévitch’s words.
ORCHESTRA DEL TEATRO COMUNALE DI BOLOGNA
ORCHESTRA DEL TEATRO COMUNALE DI BOLOGNA
An orchestra of great tradition, Sergiu Celibidache, ZoltánPeskó, Vladimir Delman, Riccardo Chailly, Daniele Gatti, and Michele Mariotti have taken turns at its helm as music directors. Among the conductors who have led the ensemble are Gary Bertini, Myung-Whun Chung, James Conlon, Pinchas Steinberg, Valery Gergiev, Eliau Inbal, Vladimir Jurowskij, Daniel Oren, Peter Maag, Neville Marriner, Kurt Masur, Riccardo Muti, Mstislav Rostropovič, Esa Pekka Salonen, Georg Solti, Christian Thielemann, Charles Dutoit, Georges Prêtre. The Teatro Comunale Orchestra is frequently invited abroad (Holland, Romania, Spain, France and Switzerland) and has participated in prestigious festivals (Amsterdam 1987, Parma 1990, Wiesbaden 1994, Santander 2004 and 2008, Aix en Provence 2005, Savonlinna 2006, Macau 2013, Muscat 2015, Guanajuato in Mexico 2017, Paris 2018). A privileged relationship with Japan has resulted in several tours, most recently in June 2019 in Osaka, Tokyo, Yokohama, Fukuoka, with Rigoletto and Il barbiere di Siviglia.
Numerous record productions, including La Favorita diretta da Richard Bonynge, Oberto Conte di San Bonifacio diretto da Zoltán Peskó, Il barbiere di Siviglia diretto da Giuseppe Patané, La figlia del reggimento diretta da Bruno Campanella, Le maschere e La bohème dirette da Gianluigi Gelmetti, La scala di seta diretta da Gabriele Ferro, Macbeth, Manon Lescaut, Rigoletto, La cenerentola, Messa Solenne e le produzioni videografiche dei Vespri siciliani e di Giovanna d’Arco e Werther dirette da Riccardo Chailly, Armida diretta da Daniele Gatti, Simon Boccanegra e Attila diretti da Michele Mariotti .
The Orchestra, led by Mariotti, has recorded for Decca a CD of sacred arias with Juan Diego Flórez and for Sony an album of romantic arias with Nino Machaidze; for Deutsche Grammophon Le Comte Ory with Flórez and La Nuit de Mai, opera arias and songs by Leoncavallo, with Placido Domingo; and for the PENTATONE label a CD of Rossini overtures to celebrate 150 years since the composer’s death.In April 2021 the orchestra recorded for Deutsche Grammophon a forthcoming disc with tenor Benjamin Bernheim and Frédéric Chaslin on the podium.
Nel marzo 2013 i corpi artistici del Teatro Comunale di Bologna diretti da Mariotti sono stati protagonisti del concerto inaugurale del IV Festival internazionale Mstislav Rostropovich di Mosca eseguendo la Messa da Requiem di Verdi. Poi nell’ottobre del 2015 hanno inaugurato la rassegna Lingotto Musica presso l’Auditorium Giovanni Agnelli di Torino, dove hanno eseguito lo Stabat Mater, l’Ouverture e le Danze dal Guillaume Tell di Rossini. Inoltre, la nuova produzione della Bohème al Teatro Comunale, con la regia di Graham Vick e la direzione di Mariotti, ha vinto il Premio Abbiati come miglior spettacolo del 2018.
After thirty years of participation in the Rossini Opera Festival (from 1988 to 2016), 2017 marked a new collaboration between the Municipal Theatre of Bologna and the Verdi Festival of Parma which, among the various productions, saw the Orchestra engaged in the Stiffelio signed by Graham Vick. Staged at the Farnese Theatre, it achieved a great success with the public and critics by winning the Special Prize of the 37th “Franco Abbiati” Music Critics Award. In 2019 the Orchestra was the protagonist of the Verdi Festival in the Luisa Miller at the church of San Francesco del Prato in Parma and in the Aida at the Verdi Theatre in Busseto, while in 2020 of a symphonic concert conducted by Valerij Gergiev at the Teatro Regio in Parma. Since January 2022 the Musical Director of the Municipal Theatre of Bologna is Oksana Lyniv.
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11 DEC | H 20:30
Auditorium Manzoni
Oct. 31 | H 8:30 p.m.
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26 SEP | H 8:30 p.m.
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31 MAY | H 8:30 p.m.
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21 SET | H 8:30 p.m.
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16 SEP | H 8:30 p.m.
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APR 30 | H 8:30 p.m.
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JUN 20 | H 8:30 p.m.
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10 MAG | H 8:30 p.m.
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6 MAG | H 8:30 p.m.
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24 APR | H 20.30
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28 MAR | H 8:30 p.m.
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1 DEC | H 20:30
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16 MAR | H 5:30 p.m.
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12 MAR | H 8:30 p.m.
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6 MAR | H 8:30 p.m.
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17 FEB | H 20.30
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8 FEB | H 8:30 p.m.
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2 FEB | H 5:30 p.m.
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JAN 12 | H 5:30 p.m.
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