Teatro Manzoni, Bologna Marco Angius/Gea Garatti Ansini — Solbiati, Haydn, Brahms
Bologna, Auditorium Manzoni — Main Hall
About the Event
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.
Alessandro Solbiati
“Sinopia”
“Although the term sinopia (the preparatory drawing in red clay of a fresco) derives from the city of Sinope from which that red clay came,” explains composer Alessandro Solbiati, “I have always liked to think that it also contains a reference to the Greek word synopsis (overview), because this is the double charm of sinopias, that of being on the one hand a quick sketch that often reveals the personality of the painter more than the accomplished final outcome, and on the other hand a total and synthetic vision of the future fresco. Sinopia was first performed in Bologna in 2019, striking for its dramatic and almost violent attack, its plummeting into emptiness and desolation, the laborious restart for a distant destination in which, on the third attempt, a thread of light is found.
Franz Joseph Haydn
Symphony No. 103 in E‐flat major , “Gable Roll”
Haydn’s penultimate symphony, nicknamed “with the roll of the timpani” for the subdued E‐flat roll, of indeterminate duration, that frames the first movement, was presented in London in 1795 by the composer himself, seated at the harpsichord. This is how the critics of the time accounted for it: “Another new overture by the fertile and beguiling Haydn was performed, who as usual produced continuous strokes of genius in both melody and harmony. The Introduction aroused the deepest attention, the Allegro enchanted, the Andante was bissant, the Minuets (especially the Trio) were sweet and playful, and the last movement was equal, if not superior, to the preceding ones.”
Johannes Brahms
“Das Schicksalslied” for choir and orchestra, op. 54
It almost sounds like a protest to Hölderlin’s poem “Song of Destiny,” in which the repetition of the orchestral introduction at the end of the piece adds an expression of faith that is missing in the concluding verse (“deep into the unknown”), as if Brahms wanted to send a message of redemption that unites the divine and the human in one embrace.
“Variations on a Theme of Haydn,” op. 56a.
The dress rehearsal for his long‐suffering First Symphony, brooded over by Brahms for nearly two decades in fear of not holding up to comparison with Beethovenian models, is all in the “Variations on a Theme of Haydn,” a masterful essay in compositional technique that anticipates some of the solutions of his maturity, such as the Passacaglia that we will find in the Fourth Symphony. The journey of this Theme goes through eight stages (plus the Finale) and is one of the absolute masterpieces in the Variation genre, a condensation of fantasy and contrapuntal science.
Practical Information
You must print out the order confirmation and show it at the box office to collect your regular ticket, starting one hour before the start of the concert, at the Teatro Manzoni, Via De' Monari 1/2.
Cast / Production
Orchestra del Teatro comunale di Bologna
Coro del Teatro comunale di Bologna
Marco Angius, conductor
Gea Garatti Ansini, choirmaster
Address
Auditorium Manzoni, Via de'Monari 1/2, Bologna, Italy — Google Maps
