RICHARD WAGNER
Tannhäuser Ouverture
(Dresda version)
BÉLA BARTÓK
Concerto for viola and orchestra SZ 120
ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK
Symphony no. 9 in E minor From the New World op. 95 (B. 178)
Viola
Timothy Ridout
Director
Riccardo Minasi
Opera Carlo Felice Genova Orchestra
Tannhäuser is Richard Wagner’s sixth operatic work, created a few years after the earlier Der Fliegende Holländer and the following Lohengrin, and first performed in Dresden on October 19, 1845 under the composer’s own direction. The opera, with its own libretto, is set in early medieval times and inspired by the legends of the troubadour Tannhäuser and the poetic contests of the Wartburg cantors. The narrative core is the conflict between carnal love/earthly temptations and spiritual love, attainable only through Christian redemption. The protagonist is plagued by this fundamental disturbance, which the Overture summarizes musically. Opening with an Andante maestoso exposes the famous theme of the pilgrims’ song, referring to the sphere of purity, the Allegro that follows anticipates instead the theme that Tannhäuser will dedicate to Venus and representing overwhelming eros. In the final section, the pilgrims’ song returns, signifying the protagonist’s path to redemption and the victory of the spirit.
When Bartók died on September 26, 1945, he had nearly completed his last work, the Concerto for Viola and Orchestra commissioned by Scottish violist William Primrose. He entrusted his closest pupil, Tibor Selby, with the task of orchestrating it on the basis of sketches he had prepared. The Concerto was first performed posthumously, in 1949 in Minneapolis. Bartók, who had moved to New York for political reasons in 1940, had suffered in his last years a condition of abandonment; it also burdened him with a strong nostalgia for Europe, in which he identified himself culturally and artistically. In his Concerto for Viola, rhythms and harmonies bring back the composer’s European stylistic signature, with frequent nods to the Romanian folklore of his native land – it was precisely through this popular quest that Bartók realized his personal reading of musical contemporaneity. Throughout the three movements Moderato, Adagio religioso and Allegro vivace in continuity with each other, the viola line reaches moments of great virtuosity and lyricism. It is the Religious Adagio in particular that expresses Bartók’s creative soul, both in its connection to his own roots, also religious, and in the union of tradition and innovation.
Symphony No. 9 is Dvořák’s last, and it bears the title From the New World precisely because the composer worked on it between 1892 and 1893 during a stay in New York, where he had been appointed director of the National Conservatory. It is his best-known symphonic work, the hallmark of which is the mixture of European symphonism and mainly harmonic cues derived from the composer’s careful study of American folk music, specifically of the Native and African American communities. References to “new world” harmony are implicit and subtle, so that the overall impact is that of a great European symphony with a new flavor. The first movement, consisting of a short Adagio section that is followed by the sweeping Allegro molto, introduces the famous theme that will later be taken up in the following movements. The Largo unfolds around an elegiac melody initially entrusted to the warm timbre of the English horn (this is an example of a theme built on a harmonic scale inspired by native music, such that it is “exotic” to listen to although originally composed by Dvořák and placed in a traditional formal context). The expansive and articulate Scherzo opens with a micro-quotation to the incipit of the second movement of Beethoven’s Ninth, followed by the final Allegro con fuoco to gather the themes of the previous movements into a symphonic triumph that represents the composer’s worthy salute to this genre.
Ludovica Gelpi
