Myung‐Whun Chung: Rossini and Schubert at Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Artists

Auditorium Parco della Musica

Auditorium Parco della Musica is a music complex consisting of an outdoor theatre in a park setting and three indoor concert halls. Situated in Rome´s ancient city centre, where the Olympic Games were held in 1960, the complex is home to the famed Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Designed by talented architects Franco Zagari, Renzo Piano, and Jürgen Reinhold, the complex has played a central role in Italian cultural life since its inauguration in 2002. The complex has an extensive program of chamber music concerts as well as pop, rock, jazz, theatrical and literary performances, cinema and art exhibitions.

Franz Schubert

During his rather short life, Franz Schubert, one of the fathers of romanticism in music, had always been an unappreciated genius who had never received public acclaim. Only his family and friends were delighted by his music, and most of his works were discovered and published only many years after his death. Franz Schubert was born on the 31th of March 1797 in the suburbs of Vienna. His father and eldest brother were amateur musicians and they taught him to play piano and violin. At the age of 11 Schubert was a singer in a choir at the Lichtenthal parish and later auditioned for Antonio Salieri and admitted to the emperor’s choir. During that period young Franz started composing his own works. However, after his voice broke he had to leave the choir and in 1814 he started working as a teacher in the same parish school as his father. He never stopped composing and 4 years later he decided to quit teaching and devote his life completely to music. He fell out with his father because of that and struggled to make ends meet. In 1818 Schubert went to Vienna, where he met Vogl. Together they gave private concerts in small aristocratic circles, mainly playing Lieder, which Schubert wrote around 600. Franz Schubert gave only one big public concert in his whole life in March 1828, which was very warmly received by the audience. However, his health was deteriorating and in November the same year he died of thyroid fever at the age of 31.

Gioachino Rossini

Gioachino Rossini was an Italian composer of the 19th century. He made his debut at the age of 18 and soon became one the most popular opera composer in history. His best known operas are The Barber of Seville (Il barbiere di Siviglia), The Italian Girl in Algiers (L'italiana in Algeri), and Cinderella (La Cenerentola). In general, his style can be defined as song-like melodic which earned him the nickname of "the Italian Mozart”. Later on he became famous for his exciting buildup of orchestral sound over a repeated phrase, which is now known as a "Rossini crescendo”.