{"id":3614,"date":"2026-06-15T19:03:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T17:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.itslafoce.org\/?page_id=3614"},"modified":"2026-06-15T19:36:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T17:36:25","slug":"english-notes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.itslafoce.org\/it\/programme\/english-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"English Programme Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Programme Notes<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Gioved\u00ec 23 luglio, 19.30<\/strong><\/span>
Palazzo Piccolomini, Pienza<\/h5>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
<\/strong>Sonata for piano and violin in E flat major, KV 380
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegro
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Andante con moto
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Rondo. Allegro<\/p>

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
<\/strong>Pavane pour une infante d\u00e9funte <\/em><\/p>

Alborada del gracioso from \u2018Miroirs\u2019
<\/em>(transcr. by Ria Ideta)<\/p>

Astor Piazzolla<\/strong> (1921-1992)
<\/strong>Three Tangos\u00a0
(transcr. by Bax\/Chung\/Ideta)
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Lo que vendr\u00e0
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Milonga del \u00e1ngel
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Libertango<\/p>

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
<\/strong>Ave verum corpus KV 618
(transcr. by Ria Ideta)<\/p>

C\u00e9sar Franck<\/strong> (1822-1890)
<\/strong>Sonata for violin and piano in A major \u00a0
(transcr. by Emmanuel Pahud)
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegretto ben moderato
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegro
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Recitativo-Fantasia. Ben moderato. Largamente con fantasia
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegretto poco mosso<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Behind the Sonata for Piano and Violin in E-flat major, KV 380<\/strong> lies the story of an extraordinary woman whose name is little known today: Josepha Barbara Auernhammer<\/strong>. An outstanding musician\u2014the most gifted pianist among all of Mozart\u2019s pupils, male or female\u2014Josepha laboured under the burden of two serious disadvantages: the sex into which she had been born and an appearance unfortunately inversely proportional to her talent. Mozart\u2019s fondness for scatological humour, his love of hyperbole, and his complete lack of inhibitions\u2014after all, how could he possibly have imagined that centuries later musicologists would pore over every detail of his correspondence with such prurient fascination?\u2014led him to leave us a merciless description of her in one of his letters: \u201cthat girl is a monster.\u201d Alongside a couple of rather flattering portraits that have survived, there is indeed at least one depiction of Josepha that presents her as a woman who, while hardly deserving so harsh a verdict, would be difficult to call conventionally attractive. Yet no sooner had Mozart passed judgment on her appearance than he applied the same word to her musicianship, this time as the highest compliment: she was a monster of ability. \u201cShe plays divinely,\u201d he wrote. Although he made no secret of the fact that Josepha\u2019s personal attentions towards him had no prospect of being reciprocated, his own admiration for her musical gifts took a more constructive form. Mozart trusted her so completely that he entrusted her with correcting the proofs of his published works. He also performed with her frequently in concerts featuring music for two pianos and dedicated several major compositions to her: the six sonatas for piano and violin, Op. 2, published by Artaria in 1781\u2014including the Sonata K. 380, in which the pianist has every opportunity to display exceptional virtuosity\u2014the Sonata in D major for Two Pianos, K. 448<\/strong>, and the Concerto in E-flat major for Two Pianos and Orchestra, K. 365<\/strong>.<\/strong> Like everyone, Auernhammer had her shortcomings\u2014though perhaps not such grave ones, considering that she married and had four children. What distinguished her was her remarkable determination to pursue a musical career at a time when, for women who were not singers, such ambitions were little more than a mirage. After Mozart\u2019s death she frequently appeared as a soloist in Vienna\u2019s leading theatres and succeeded in publishing a substantial body of her own music\u2014an achievement of no small significance in that era. Through talent alone, supported by extraordinary perseverance, she established a noteworthy professional reputation. It is a great pity that such a musician now emerges into the light only as the occasional dedicatee of Mozart\u2019s works, while her own sonatas, highly praised by contemporary critics, remain buried in obscurity and almost entirely forgotten.<\/p>

The little motet Ave verum corpus, <\/strong>KV. 618<\/strong> was composed in the late spring of 1791<\/strong>, the final year of Mozart\u2019s life. The work was written in Baden<\/strong>, where Mozart had joined his wife Constanze<\/strong>, who, as she often did, was taking the waters at the spa. The couple\u2019s principal acquaintance in the town was Anton Stoll<\/strong>, choirmaster of the parish church of St Stephen<\/strong>. In gratitude for the many kindnesses Stoll had shown them during their stays there, Mozart decided to compose and dedicate to him a short piece for the forthcoming celebration of Corpus Christi<\/strong>. The motet faithfully adheres to the ideals of simplicity in sacred music advocated by Emperor Joseph II<\/strong>. Thus, without the slightest trace of grandiosity, these forty-six measures came into being\u2014music that transcends the provincial circumstances of a local religious celebration to claim its place among the most beautiful works of sacred music, indeed among the most beautiful pieces of any kind, ever composed. And they remain so even when performed not by the original forces\u2014four-part choir, strings, and organ\u2014but by an instrument Mozart himself never knew.<\/p>

At the end of the nineteenth century, a twenty-four-year-old Maurice Ravel, still a student at the Paris Conservatoire, composed a piano piece that would become his most famous work long before the ubiquitous Bol\u00e9ro<\/em>: the Pavane pour une infante d\u00e9funte<\/strong>. Its evocative and enigmatic title refers first of all to the pavane<\/em>, the stately sixteenth-century dance, reflecting the archaising tendencies so characteristic of fin-de-si\u00e8cle French music. One need only think of another celebrated Pavane<\/em>, that of Gabriel Faur\u00e9, Op. 50\u2014particularly significant since Faur\u00e9 was Ravel\u2019s teacher. The word infanta<\/em>, meanwhile, is the title traditionally borne by Spanish princesses. Spain itself\u2014quite apart from being the homeland of Ravel\u2019s mother, who was of Basque descent and spent her childhood in Madrid\u2014had, since the days of Mikhail Glinka, become an imaginary source of the exotic musical spices that French and Russian composers delighted in serving to their audiences. Despite its immense popularity among listeners, captivated then as now by the melody\u2019s elegant restraint and by the unexpected melancholy of its unusual G major, the Pavane<\/em> was never especially dear to Ravel himself. At one point he remarked upon its formal simplicity and dismissed the suggestive brilliance of its title as little more than an \u201calliteration.\u201d It is yet another reminder that once a work has left the hands of its creator, it belongs not to the one who imagined it, but to those who make it their own through listening. Spain appears frequently throughout Ravel\u2019s music\u2014Habanera<\/em>, Rapsodie espagnole<\/em>, L\u2019Heure espagnole<\/em>, Bol\u00e9ro<\/em>\u2014but achieves its fullest triumph in Alborada del gracioso<\/strong>. The word alborada<\/em> corresponds to the French aubade<\/em>, a morning love song, while gracioso<\/em> denotes the comic servant figure of humble origins familiar from the plays of Lope de Vega and Pedro Calder\u00f3n de la Barca. The title might therefore be translated as Morning Serenade of the Jester<\/em>. The fourth of the five piano pieces that make up Miroirs<\/em>, composed in 1905, it is a nervous, frenetic work that glorifies the idea of the guitar\u2019s rasgueado<\/em>\u2014the rapid sweeping motion of the right hand across the strings. With effortless nonchalance, Ravel dispenses with the guitar itself and transfers its magic, in distilled form, to the keyboard of the piano. The miracle remains intact in the orchestral version of 1918; indeed, it is enhanced by the presence of two harps and a lavish percussion section complete with the obligatory castanets. At a moment when Spain was beginning to be more than merely an abstract idea of picturesque folk music and was producing its first truly significant generation of native composers, Manuel de Falla was fascinated by the aura of authenticity that seemed to emanate from Ravel\u2019s glittering orchestration. He asked Ravel how he had achieved such convincing Spanish colour. Ravel confessed that his connection to Spain was in fact rather tenuous and rested largely upon impressions inherited from his mother. Yet those impressions, far more than any systematic ethnographic or musicological study, proved sufficient for him to recreate the sounds of a Spain so authentic that it sounded entirely genuine even to the ears of a genuine Spaniard.Top of FormBottom of Form<\/p>

The man who made the tango part of the world\u2019s cultural heritage and came to embody Argentine musical culture did not, in fact, spend most of his life in Argentina and was\u2014perhaps despite himself\u2014above all a citizen of the world. The son of Italian emigrants and a second-generation immigrant, Astor Piazzolla<\/strong> was born in Mar del Plata, but by the age of four was already living in New York City, where his parents had moved in search of better opportunities. At the age of eight his father, an amateur musician, bought him his first bandoneon from a pawnshop. The boy quickly mastered the instrument: his first recording as a performer dates from 1931, though no one could then have imagined that the bandoneon would become inseparably linked to his name. Exposure to such a broad cultural environment\u2014he remained in the United States until the age of sixteen\u2014proved immensely beneficial. Piazzolla not only learned English but also forged lasting connections with both European classical music and jazz, without ever losing touch with Argentina, which he revisited regularly with his family. From this unique combination emerged the unmistakable voice of his mature style, with tango serving as the principal ingredient in all his creations. He succeeded in rescuing what had essentially been a popular dance from the quicksand of local colour that threatened to confine it to dance halls and dancers alone, transforming it instead into a major cultural force. In doing so, he elevated the entire tradition and, retrospectively, all of its great interpreters\u2014Carlos Gardel above all. Even Nadia Boulanger, with whom Piazzolla studied in Paris between 1954 and 1955, recognised that his reinvention of tango through the prism of other musical cultures represented his most authentic artistic voice, and she encouraged him to devote himself to it entirely. Composed in 1957, Lo que vendr\u00e1<\/strong> marks a decisive milestone in Piazzolla\u2019s transition toward tango nuevo<\/em>. Conceived almost as a challenge to the criticisms of purists, it openly dismantles traditional formulas and embraces a more modern musical language. The work was recorded and released in the same year by the legendary Octeto Buenos Aires<\/strong>, the ensemble founded by Piazzolla that revolutionised the standard tango orchestra by introducing instruments such as the cello and the electric guitar. At the time, the piece provoked the hostility of Argentine traditionalists, who dismissed it as overly intellectual and insufficiently suited to dancing. Yet this was precisely Piazzolla\u2019s aim: to liberate tango from the dance floor and from its role as popular entertainment, bringing it instead into the concert hall. Milonga del \u00c1ngel<\/strong>\u2014the milonga<\/em> being a more lively Argentine dance related to tango\u2014is the second movement of the \u00c1ngel<\/em> trilogy, which begins with La Muerte del \u00c1ngel<\/strong> (The Death of the Angel<\/em>) and concludes with Resurrecci\u00f3n del \u00c1ngel<\/strong> (The Resurrection of the Angel<\/em>). Unlike the other movements, however, it has acquired an independent popularity through countless transcriptions and arrangements, thanks to its hauntingly beautiful and instantly recognisable melody. The work most universally associated with Piazzolla\u2019s name, Libertango<\/strong>, was written in Rome in 1974 and represents the final step in his reimagining of tango. At the time Piazzolla was living on Via dei Coronari, and the LP that bore the title of his most famous composition\u2014recorded in Milan with an ensemble composed entirely of Italian musicians, save for Piazzolla himself on the bandoneon\u2014became the vehicle for his European breakthrough and the definitive affirmation of his artistic vision. The title combines the words tango<\/em> and libert\u00e0<\/em> (\u201cfreedom\u201d), proclaiming tango\u2019s ultimate emancipation from the dance of its origins\u2014from those splendid tales of love, jealousy, and knife fights\u2014and transforming it into a music of universal and timeless resonance, one in which anyone can recognise something of themselves.<\/p>

Composed during a summer stay in Combs-la-Ville and completed on 28 September 1886, the Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major<\/strong> stands as the pinnacle of C\u00e9sar Franck\u2019s chamber music output. The work was conceived as a wedding gift for the celebrated violinist Eug\u00e8ne Ysa\u00ffe, to whom it was dedicated and who gave its first performance. The premiere took place on 16 December 1886 at the Cercle Artistique Royal Gaulois in Brussels, with Ysa\u00ffe on the violin and L\u00e9ontine-Marie Bordes-P\u00e8ne at the piano. Widely regarded as one of the earliest and most accomplished examples of cyclic form, the Sonata finds its centre of gravity in the principal theme, introduced by the violin in the first movement after a brief piano prelude. This generative musical cell does not remain confined to the opening movement; rather, it reappears transformed and reimagined throughout all four movements, providing the work with remarkable organic unity. Although the tonal framework is rooted in A major, Franck ventures far afield harmonically, leading the second and third movements into distant tonal regions in a play of tension and resolution characteristic of the late Romantic language. Thanks to its perfect balance of formal rigour and lyrical intensity, the Sonata quickly attracted the admiration of contemporaries, including Marcel Proust. Some scholars have even suggested that this work may have served as the inspiration for the celebrated \u201cVinteuil Sonata\u201d in In Search of Lost Time. Proust\u2019s petite phrase<\/em>, capable of summoning profound memories and emotions, finds a plausible counterpart in the cyclical structure and poignant expressiveness of Franck\u2019s melody\u2014a bridge, perhaps, between the discipline of pure music and the evocative power of literary symbolism. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that flautists as well as violinists have been drawn to these expansive and deeply expressive pages. The first major figure to establish the work within the flute repertoire was Jean-Pierre Rampal, who performed and championed it in 1971. Since then, hearing the Sonata in this guise can no longer be considered exceptional; rather, it has become a fully accepted and cherished alternative to the original version.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/details>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Sabato 25 luglio, 19.30<\/strong><\/span>
Cortile, Chiarentana<\/h5>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
<\/strong>Trio for viola, clarinet and piano in E flat major, Kegelstatt<\/em>, KV 498
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Andante
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Minuetto
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Rondo. Allegretto<\/p>

Eug\u00e8ne Ysa\u00ffe (1858-1931)
<\/strong>Sonata for solo violin in D minor, op. 27 No. 3 Ballade<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>

Madeleine Dring (1923-1977)
<\/strong>Trio per flauto, oboe e pianoforte
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegro con brio
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Andante semplice
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegro giocoso<\/p>

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
<\/strong>Sonata for flute and piano, FP 164
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegro malinconico
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Cantilena. Assez lent
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Presto giocoso<\/p>

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
<\/strong>M\u00e4rchenerz\u00e4hlungen <\/em>for viola, clarinet and piano op. 132
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Lebhaft, nicht zu schnell
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Lebhaft und sehr markirt
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Ruhiges tempo, mit zartem Ausdruck
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Lebhaft, sehr markirt<\/p>

Camille Saint-Sa\u00ebns (1835-1921)
<\/strong>Tarantelle<\/em> for flute and piano in A minor op. 6<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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In eighteenth-century German, Kegelstatt<\/em> literally meant \u201ca place where skittles are played\u201d \u2014 what today we would simply call a bowling alley. The manuscript of the Trio, K. 498\u2014identified as Kegelstatt<\/em> in the first K\u00f6chel catalogue\u2014bears the composition date of August 5, 1786, yet makes no mention whatsoever of skittles. Those objects do appear elsewhere, however: in the autograph manuscript of the 12 Duets for Horn<\/em>, K. 487, which Mozart<\/strong> himself claimed to have composed \u201con July 27, 1786, while playing skittles,\u201d a pastime among the most popular of Viennese summer amusements. The weight of authority, however, made itself felt, and K\u00f6chel\u2019s probable lapsus calami<\/em> had the lasting effect of assigning our Trio a curious but mistaken origin story\u2014an unforgettable strike that did much to reinforce an already evident uniqueness. For, skittles or not, the Trio is truly remarkable for one reason above all: its instrumentation, which appears here for the first time in the history of music. The abandonment of the conventional piano trio scoring\u2014piano, violin, and cello\u2014was not the result of any grand design, but of the best possible reason. Mozart happened to be with fellow musician friends who wished to play together, yet there existed no work combining their instruments. On that August day in 1786 there were three of them spending time together: Mozart himself; Anton Stadler, an outstanding clarinettist and, above all, a close friend; and Franziska von Jacquin, a piano student and the daughter of another dear friend, Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin. The ensemble for which the work was written had never before been used: piano\u2014for Franziska; clarinet\u2014for Anton; and viola, Wolfgang\u2019s favourite string instrument, the one he invariably chose when playing chamber music and which he selected for himself on this occasion as well. It is precisely this playful spontaneity that makes the work justly famous: a fleeting moment as sweet and perfect as a heart-stopping glance. The tailor-made scoring, perfectly suited to the strengths of the three friends, testifies to the Trio\u2019s effortless perfection. Its first performance, to the exclusive delight of those who played it, took place immediately upon completion, then and there. The work was published two years later, in 1788, by Artaria, transforming what had begun as a private musical pleasure into a joy for everyone\u2014a joy that we can still share today.<\/p>

It was the experience of hearing one of Bach\u2019s Sonatas for solo violin performed by Joseph Szigeti that inspired Eug\u00e8ne Ysa\u00ffe<\/strong>\u2014one of the greatest violinists of all time\u2014to compose a set of six works which, like Bach\u2019s three Sonatas and three Partitas, would serve both as a training ground for virtuosity and as an interpretative challenge worthy of the most gifted musicians. Thus, in July 1923, the collection of the Six Sonatas for Solo Violin<\/em>, Op. 27, came into being. Each sonata was dedicated to a fellow virtuoso whom Ysa\u00ffe knew and admired: in order, Joseph Szigeti, Jacques Thibaud, George Enescu, Fritz Kreisler, Mathieu Crickboom, and Manuel Quiroga. Together they represent a twentieth-century summation of the supreme technical arsenal that every soloist must master and display with effortless assurance: every variety of bow stroke, extreme positions, left-hand pizzicato, harmonics, and countless other refinements. Yet all these technical demands are placed at the service of music whose artistic stature may still not be fully appreciated. This is due in part to the prejudice that their formidable difficulty is merely an end in itself, and in part to the fact that these works have not yet secured a fully established place in the standard repertoire. An exception is the Sonata for Solo Violin in D minor<\/em>, Op. 27 No. 3, known as the Ballade<\/em>. It is the shortest of the six\u2014lasting little more than five minutes\u2014and consists of a single movement divided into two contrasting sections. The broad lyricism of its opening, combined with its dazzling and devilishly virtuosic conclusion, makes it immensely rewarding for both performer and listener. Perfect as a concert encore, it remains one of Ysa\u00ffe\u2019s best-known and most beloved compositions.<\/p>

Singer, pianist, actress: Madeleine Dring<\/strong> was all of these, but above all she was a remarkable composer who, at the height of her creative maturity\u2014in the 1960s\u2014chose to keep her distance from musical experimentalism and remain accessible to audiences of every kind. She embraced a stylistic eclecticism that looked as readily to Rachmaninov and Poulenc as to Gershwin, Cole Porter, and the great composers of Broadway. Throughout her career, Dring retained a freshness of inspiration that is no small achievement. It found particularly happy expression in her chamber music and vocal works, though she was equally at ease writing for ballet, cabaret, theatre, and television. Married from 1947 to Roger Lord, who served for more than three decades as principal oboist of the London Symphony Orchestra, she showed a special affinity for the instrument of which her husband was an undisputed master. The Trio for Flute, Oboe and Piano<\/em>, whose emotional centre lies in the expansive and hypnotic melody of its second movement, is a work of striking effectiveness. It demonstrates how tonal language in the twentieth century could still give rise to music that is concise and immediately appealing, while sacrificing none of its capacity for unexpected richness of colour and formal sophistication. From this perspective, not only this work but Dring\u2019s entire output deserves renewed attention and reassessment. The same might be said, unfortunately, of much music composed by women\u2014works that have only lightly touched the standard repertory, yet are capable of leaving lasting impressions, moments of genuine revelation.<\/p>

Champagne, caviar, luxury cars, dream resorts: the heirs to great fortunes who populate Instagram and TikTok seem to have very clear ideas about how to spend their family wealth. When Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge inherited her father\u2019s estate\u2014a prosperous merchant\u2014in 1915, she too had very clear ideas on the matter. She devoted most of her fortune to music. Born in 1864, Elizabeth had studied both piano and composition as a young woman, eventually performing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Marriage, however, quietly placed her artistic ambitions on hold. Widowed and left with a son, having lost her husband, father, and mother in rapid succession, and now wealthy in her own right, she returned to music. She resumed performing as the accomplished pianist she had always been\u2014and then did much more besides. She began by donating Sprague Hall to Yale University, a venue that still hosts concerts today. She funded the construction of the auditorium at the Library of Congress that continues to bear witness to her generosity, and she became a major benefactor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Her greatest passion, however, was chamber music. Not content with founding the Berkshire Chamber Music Festival, she set about commissioning chamber works from the leading composers of her time\u2014many of which she performed herself. These original manuscripts enriched the collections of the Library of Congress, an institution that Coolidge regarded as a beacon of American culture. Financial independence, visionary judgment, and a remarkable ability to support ambitious artistic projects of the highest quality elevated Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge to near-mythical status within the musical world. Composers looked to her, appealed to her, and revered her as the \u201cpatron saint of American music\u201d\u2014indeed, of music itself. The phrase was far less metaphorical than it might seem. Her influence was tangible, immediate, and transformative. Dozens of works that shaped the course of twentieth-century music were dedicated to her, while many masterpieces bear her name in their opening pages. For that reason, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge\u2019s legacy will never dissolve into the wasteland of conspicuous consumption that so often accompanies inherited wealth. Instead, it endures wherever great music is heard, cherished, and renewed. When Francis Poulenc<\/strong> received a commission for a chamber work from the Coolidge Foundation, it was 1956 and Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge had already been dead for three years. Immersed in the final stages of preparing Dialogues des Carm\u00e9lites<\/em>, he initially declined the invitation, only to accept it when the offer was renewed shortly thereafter and his schedule had become less demanding. Poulenc\u2019s suggestion regarding the instrumentation was accepted, and thus the Sonata for Flute and Piano<\/em>, FP 164, entered his catalogue. Dedicated, as was only fitting, to the memory of Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, the work was conceived with two specific performers in mind: the flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal, a close friend of the composer, and Poulenc himself at the piano. According to Poulenc\u2019s own description, the sonata is \u201crather close\u201d in spirit to Debussy\u2019s sonatas for two instruments, written some four decades earlier. The remark highlights his deliberate decision to distance himself from the more uncompromising experimentalism that had marked much of the first half of the twentieth century. Instead, he embraced the French tradition and his own innate gift for melody, producing a work that remains among the most immediately appealing and rewarding compositions of its era.<\/p>

In the extraordinary career of Camille Saint-Sa\u00ebns<\/strong>, which spanned more than eighty years, the delightful Tarantelle<\/em>, Op. 6 for flute and piano belongs to its early years. Written in 1857, it dates from a time when Saint-Sa\u00ebns was a promising twenty-two-year-old, a former child prodigy striving to transform the fleeting curiosity aroused by his precocious talent into a lasting interest in his music. To that end, he carefully cultivated his presence in the fashionable Parisian salons. Among these, none was more distinguished than the salon of Rossini. Having brought his dazzling operatic career to a close many years earlier, Rossini had retired to Passy, just outside Paris. There he composed little, if at all, preferring instead to indulge his imagination through small-scale works, exquisitely crafted with a wit as refined as it was perfectly suited to the instruments for which they were written. The Tarantelle<\/em> was performed at one of the customary evening gatherings at Rossini\u2019s home, where guests feasted with both mouth and ears\u2014dining first and listening to music afterwards. Rossini, the great melancholic, presided over the performance seated solemnly in the front row beside the young and still obscure Saint-Sa\u00ebns. There were no printed programmes, and no one present knew the sparkling little piece. With its persistent ostinato bass, it audaciously combined the intellectual poise of a passacaglia with the unbridled vitality of the dance associated with the tarantati<\/em> of Apulia, a dance that had come to symbolize southern Italy itself. When the performance ended, a small crowd of enthusiastic admirers immediately gathered around the revered Maestro. Each sought to outdo the others in extravagant praise, competing to celebrate the \u201cItalian\u201d novelty they had just heard, all in the hope of eliciting a nod of approval from that corpulent vanity, so thoroughly and sadly sated with both food and self-regard. Rossini listened to the accolades without the slightest change of expression. At last he spoke, only to say that he agreed with every word\u2014and that all those compliments should be directed to the true composer seated beside him. The revelation was met with general astonishment.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/details>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Domenica 26 luglio, 19.30<\/strong><\/span>
Palazzo Piccolomini, Pienza<\/h5>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
<\/strong>Trio per piano, violin and cello in B-flat major KV 502
(transcr. by Emmanuel Pahud)
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegro
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Larghetto
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegretto<\/p>

B\u00e9la Bart\u00f3k (1881-1945)
<\/strong>Contrasts<\/em>, for violin, clarinet and piano Sz. 111
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Verbunkos. Moderato ben ritmato
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em> Pihen\u0151. Lento
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Sebes. Allegro vivace<\/p>

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
<\/strong>From Songs without words
(transcr. by Carl Czerny for piano four-hands)
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>No. 1 in E flat major op. 67
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>No. 2 in F major op. 67
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>No. 4 in C major op. 67
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>No. 5 in B minor op. 67
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>No. 6 in A major op. 62 Spring song<\/em><\/p>

Robert Schumann\u00a0(1810-1856)
<\/strong>Quartet for piano and strings in E-flat major op. 47
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Sostenuto assai-Allegro ma non troppo
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Scherzo. Molto vivace
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Andante cantabile
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Finale. Vivace<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Followed in the K\u00f6chel catalogue by the brilliant Piano Concerto K. 503 and then by the \u201cPrague\u201d Symphony K. 504, the Trio for piano, violin and cello in B-flat major, K. 502 (which we will hear this evening in a transcription replacing the violin with the flute), is the second in Mozart\u2019s<\/strong> series of piano trios. It is a work whose modest instrumentation originally destined it for publication and domestic music-making, yet the posthumous fame of its composer has rescued it from the oblivion that befell many similar pieces by his contemporaries. Even so, the elegance and charm that this Trio radiates whenever it is performed in concert serve to redeem an entire world of eighteenth-century music that remains outside our familiar repertoire. It leaves us yearning for a lost culture in which, in every apartment building, there was more than one person capable of picking up an instrument, opening a score, and simply beginning to play.<\/p>

Contrasts<\/strong> for violin, clarinet, and piano is not only one of the most fascinating works in B\u00e9la Bart\u00f3k\u2019s output; within his catalogue, it is also the title that best captures the essence of both his music and his personality, for he cultivated contrasts throughout his life. Raised on the finest music of his age\u2014Liszt, Wagner, Brahms\u2014Bart\u00f3k found his own voice by grafting his rigorous academic training onto the seemingly opposite roots of Hungarian folk music. While elsewhere composers were experimenting with atonality and twelve-tone techniques, Bart\u00f3k created a new musical world from the folk traditions of the past, built on asymmetrical rhythms and pentatonic and modal melodies. Contrasts<\/em> deepens and amplifies precisely these kinds of oppositions. \u00a0The work was commissioned by Joseph Szigeti, the Hungarian violin virtuoso with a distinguished international career, and by Benny Goodman, one of the twentieth century\u2019s giants of jazz clarinet. Goodman knew something about contrasts himself. Asking Bart\u00f3k for a new work was yet another example of his constant drive to raise the bar for himself\u2014and, in this case, for Bart\u00f3k as well. The commission persuaded the composer to write, for the first time, a chamber work featuring a wind instrument. \u00a0Goodman was far more than a jazz musician who achieved fame and fortune as the \u201cKing of Swing.\u201d Born to Jewish immigrants who had fled Russia, he combined a first-rate musical education with a refined appreciation of the European classical tradition. This breadth of culture enriched his music in ways that continue to resonate today. Equally significant was his willingness to ignore racial barriers: by hiring the most talented musicians regardless of skin colour, he became one of the first major bandleaders to challenge the segregation that, in the 1930s United States, prevented black and white musicians from performing together. Armed with an extraordinary reputation, Goodman became, in January 1938, the first jazz musician to appear at New York\u2019s Carnegie Hall with his own band and repertoire, forging a durable bridge between jazz and classical music. A year later, on 9 January 1939, he returned with Egon Petri and Szigeti to perform the embryo of what would become Contrasts<\/em>, then consisting only of the first and last movements. The definitive version required further work and the addition of the central slow movement, after which its form was sealed by the celebrated 1940 recording with Bart\u00f3k, Szigeti, and Goodman themselves. The title Contrasts<\/em> perfectly describes the relationship among the three instruments: rather than seeking complete integration\u2014the piano, indeed, largely refrains from acting as a mediator\u2014they engage in a dialogue in which each instrument asserts its own distinctive identity. \u00a0The Verbunkos<\/em><\/strong> with which Contrasts<\/em> opens is the traditional Hungarian recruiting dance, performed by uniformed soldiers to attract new recruits. The clarinet\u2019s opening timbre evokes that of the t\u00e1rogat\u00f3<\/strong>, an ancient single-reed, conical-bore instrument characteristic of Hungarian folk music, which was banned by the Habsburgs in the eighteenth century after becoming the sonic emblem of the uprising led by Francis II R\u00e1k\u00f3czi. The dance\u2019s dotted rhythms find new life in the iconic instrument of modern American music, while the violin\u2019s accompanying opening pizzicato seems to have wandered in from the Second Sonata for Violin and Piano by Maurice Ravel, itself inspired by Bart\u00f3k\u2019s two violin sonatas. Against the backdrop of a piano ever careful not to steal the spotlight, the two instruments engage in a dazzling contest of virtuosity: tremolos, pizzicatos, multiple stops, and arpeggios from the violin answered by the clarinet\u2019s rapid register shifts, scales, and seemingly endless torrents of arpeggios, before the movement concludes with a demanding cadenza. The slow movement, Pihen\u0151<\/em><\/strong>\u2014Hungarian for \u201crest\u201d or \u201crepose\u201d\u2014embodies a dark and mysterious stillness, at times recalling the atmosphere of the Night Music<\/em> movement from Bart\u00f3k\u2019s suite Out of Doors<\/em>. Sebes<\/em><\/strong>, the fast dance traditionally associated with recruits accepting enlistment, begins with a theatrical surprise. The clarinettist sets aside the A clarinet and takes up a B-flat clarinet, while the violinist exchanges instruments for one with an altered tuning: the fourth string is raised from G to G-sharp, and the first string lowered from E to E-flat. This makes it possible to play the opening thirty measures almost entirely in diminished fifths\u2014\u201cthe devil\u2019s interval\u201d in the Western classical tradition, yet a fundamental harmonic sonority in Hungarian folk music and jazz, enriched with a touch of defiant character. At first these intervals sound on the violin\u2019s open strings, alternating with the single available perfect fifth, and launch a kind of bewitched dance of complex rhythms, culminating in a breathtakingly virtuosic violin cadenza.<\/p>

If we set aside the incidental music for A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/em>\u2014with the Wedding March foremost among its celebrated numbers\u2014the most popular works ever to emerge from the pen of Felix Mendelssohn <\/strong>are undoubtedly the Songs Without Words<\/em>. Their original German title, Lieder ohne Worte<\/em>, makes their ideal model easier to recognize: the Lied<\/em>, that quintessentially Romantic vocal miniature which, from Franz Schubert onward and until the advent of the phonograph, spread with irresistible grace to pianos everywhere and engaged anyone fortunate enough to possess a tuneful voice. Between 1829 and 1845, Mendelssohn decided that singing and words could be dispensed with altogether, and at regular intervals he published eight volumes, each containing six of these pieces, for a total of forty-eight. They are concise works, well within the reach of any pianist who has successfully completed the first few years of keyboard study. Yet because they embody such exquisite taste, it sometimes happens that a professional musician, rather than dazzling an audience with feats of virtuoso acrobatics, chooses restraint instead and reveals true artistry by carefully chiselling, for discerning listeners, the flawless contours of these pearly miniatures. Although Mendelssohn also composed a substantial number of Lieder<\/em> furnished with poetic texts, he steadfastly refused to clothe these pieces in anything other than notes. \u201cWhat the music I love expresses to me,\u201d he wrote, \u201cis not too indefinite to be put into words, but on the contrary too definite\u201d (the emphasis is Mendelssohn\u2019s own). Whatever this music may mean, there is no one\u2014absolutely no one\u2014who does not share in its meaning.<\/p>

For Robert Schumann<\/strong>, then thirty-two years old, 1842 was the year of chamber music<\/strong>. In rapid succession he produced the Three String Quartets, Op. 41<\/strong>, the Piano Quintet, Op. 44<\/strong>, <\/strong>and finally the Piano Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 47<\/strong>. <\/strong>Rightly celebrated and firmly established in the canon of the finest works ever written for this ensemble, the Quartet was composed in the miraculous span of just five days. It is a large-scale and deeply enjoyable fresco, poised between Romantic melodic inspiration and the great contrapuntal mastery of the German tradition. This is already evident in the first movement, whose texture is woven from imitative counterpoint between piano and strings, and at times even from strict canon, particularly throughout the second-subject area. Counterpoint likewise permeates the entire third movement, remarkable for its sustained lyricism, and culminates in six glorious measures of canon above a B-flat pedal point held by the cello. (It is worth noting that the cellist is instructed, during the fourth variation, to retune the lowest string from C down to B-flat.) Counterpoint also informs the concluding fourth movement, while the second movement\u2014a dazzlingly swift scherzo with a distinctly Mendelssohnian flavour\u2014plays delightfully with syncopated rhythms.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/details>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Marted\u00ec 28 luglio, 19.30<\/strong><\/span>
Chiesa di Sant\u2019Andrea, Castiglioncello del Trinoro<\/h5>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
<\/strong>Suite for unaccompanied cello No. 5 in C minor BWV 1011
(transcr. for viola)
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Pr\u00e9lude
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allemande
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Courante
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Sarabande
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Gavottes I\/II
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Gigue<\/p>

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
<\/strong>Quartet for piano and strings in E flat major KV 493
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegro
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Larghetto
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegretto<\/p>

Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826)
<\/strong>Grand duo concertant for clarinet and piano op. 48
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegro con fuoco
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Andante con moto
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Rondo. Allegro\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
<\/strong>Quintet for piano and strings in A major D 667 The Trout
<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegro vivace
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Andante
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Scherzo. Presto
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Andantino
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Finale. Allegro giusto<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The entire family of bowed string instruments originated in Italy\u2014among the many musical achievements of our country, this is one of them\u2014and it happened within a relatively short span of years during the second half of the sixteenth century. The cello seemed destined, like the double bass, for the role of a mere bearer of the bass line. Yet while the double bass never truly escaped that fate\u2014aside from a few notable exceptions\u2014the cello immediately revealed natural qualities that allowed it to emerge from the basso continuo role to which it had been confined and occasionally step into the spotlight. More precisely, it was its performers who, having experienced firsthand the instrument\u2019s qualities\u2014its richness of colour in the low register, its bright and singing tone in the middle and upper ranges, its remarkable extension, and the homogeneity and flexibility of its sound\u2014began composing music that showcased these characteristics. In doing so, they shone a spotlight not only on the instrument but also on themselves. To be sure, this was nothing comparable to the vast body of violin literature that had existed from the beginning. Nevertheless, we remember early cellists such as Giovanni Bononcini, Giuseppe Jacchini, and even Benedetto Marcello largely for this reason. The music that virtuoso cellists still perform today, however, belongs to other names: Antonio Vivaldi and Johann Sebastian Bach<\/strong>. Vivaldi was the first to bring the cello out of the shadows and place it prominently in the foreground, either alone or alongside the violin against the backdrop of the orchestra. Bach went much further. With his Six Suites for Solo Cello, he placed the instrument centre stage, entirely alone, as the undisputed protagonist. Bach composed these works between 1717 and 1723 while serving as Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-K\u00f6then, a ruler who preferred secular instrumental music to sacred music. The likely recipient of these pieces was Christian Bernhard Linigke, a virtuoso cellist who served at court as a Kammermusikus. Today, the Six Cello Suites are a cornerstone of the repertoire for the most accomplished cellists, and sophisticated audiences often wear their appreciation of this music as a badge of honour. It is undoubtedly beautiful music, but also highly intellectual\u2014something for refined tastes, inclined toward esoteric flavours and, one might say, the equally esoteric rituals of a three-star Michelin restaurant. It should therefore come as no surprise that such extraordinary works were quickly forgotten, just as their composer himself was largely forgotten after his death. Ironically, Bach was neglected for many of the same reasons he is admired today, while audiences preferred the more accessible, pleasant, and elegant music of his sons. Although a twenty-year-old Felix Mendelssohn revived Bach\u2019s reputation with his famous 1829 performance of the St. Matthew Passion<\/em>, Bach\u2019s oeuvre did not immediately enjoy universal favour. These Suites, for example, first published only in 1825, were regarded throughout much of the nineteenth century as a fundamental pedagogical work rather than concert repertoire. Cellists studied them diligently but rarely performed them in public, much as only a particularly unconventional pianist today might present Czerny studies or selections from Clementi\u2019s Gradus ad Parnassum<\/em> in recital. The Suites became a true pillar of the concert repertoire thanks to a young aspiring cellist who, while strolling through the streets of Barcelona with his father in 1890, entered a secondhand bookshop and purchased a somewhat worn printed copy. No one had ever told him about them, but for the boy it was love at first sight. He devoted himself to their study, and after twelve years of hard work, Pablo Casals\u2014regarded ever since as the ideal father figure of twentieth-century cellists\u2014decided not only that he and these pages were inseparable, but also that he would bring this Cinderella, covered in the soot of time and relegated for more than a century and a half to the humble duties of pedagogy, to the ball. Thus, in 1901, Bach\u2019s work finally received the recognition it deserved and emerged as the princess it had always been, in what may have been its first documented public performance. Casals nevertheless waited until his sixties before making his landmark recording of the Suites. This took place in London between 1936 and 1939, in studios that would later become famous for entirely different reasons and were named after the street on which they stood: Abbey Road. But that is another story. Suite No. 5 in C Minor, BWV 1011<\/strong> departs from the Italian character of the other Suites and embraces French elegance. This is evident in its solemn French-style Overture, structured as Adagio\u2013Allegro and rich in dotted rhythms, as well as in the concluding Gigue, which favours a tighter, more contrapuntal style than its counterparts. The truly unique feature of this work, however, is its use of scordatura<\/em><\/strong>, requiring the cellist to alter the instrument\u2019s standard tuning by lowering the highest string from A to G. The reduced tension of the string produces a darker, more shadowy sound, ideally suited to the key of C minor. Moreover, this alternative tuning makes possible chords and double-stops that would be technically impossible on a normally tuned cello, giving the Suite its distinctive, almost organ-like density.<\/p>

Mozart<\/strong> was the first composer in the entire history of music to write for an ensemble consisting of piano, violin, viola, and cello. This was an absolute novelty devised by the publisher Hoffmeister, who in 1785 had launched a monthly series of new works commissioned from the most fashionable composers of the day. Mozart, in particular, was asked to provide three Piano Quartets. Those were happier times. In the evenings, people did not exchange torrents of WhatsApp messages, nor did they fall asleep on the sofa while endlessly scrolling through their phones. Generally, they had children in the dear old-fashioned way; and if they preferred less natural forms of entertainment, they played cards or made music together, since producing music oneself was not only the only way to ensure descendants, but also the only way to hear music at home. In that golden age, a mediocre pianist and three enthusiastic amateur string players were not a source of dread but a delight for the neighbourhood. This is why music publishers flourished then, whereas today they survive in something akin to protected reserves. It is also why they strove to invent new and enticing musical genres. And so Mozart wrote his Piano Quartets, a genre that had never before been attempted. Yet the publication of the first, the Piano Quartet in G minor, KV 478<\/strong>, met with no success. It was too sophisticated, too difficult, too unsuitable for the eager amateur string players and modest pianists who made music at home for pleasure. It was simply too beautiful and demanded too much talent from its performers. As a result, Hoffmeister terminated his contract with Mozart and even allowed him to keep the advance payment, on the condition that he would not seek publication of the other two quartets. Mozart was more than happy to agree, especially since he had nearly completed the second work, the Piano Quartet in E-flat major, KV 493<\/strong>, and believed it might interest Artaria, his regular publisher. Indeed, Artaria published it in July 1787. The third quartet, no longer requested by anyone, was never written. The two quartets form a strikingly antithetical pair: black and white, night and day. As dark, dramatic, and troubled as KV 478 is, KV 493 is luminous, lyrical, and idyllic. The date inscribed on the manuscript\u20143 June 1786\u2014places it immediately after the completion of The Marriage of Figaro<\/em>, and the enchanting atmosphere of that opera seems to reappear here, multiplied through the abstraction of absolute music. Everything becomes grace and perfection. The theme of the final movement, a Rondo, is exalted by a style of writing that transforms its palpable simplicity into a sophisticated concertante structure. It stands as a moving and fully conscious tribute to the Age of Gallantry\u2014an era that, only two years later, would be swept away forever by the events of the French Revolution.<\/p>

An Italian proverb says, \u201cHe who finds a friend finds a treasure.\u201d Certainly, when an instrumentalist finds a composer as a friend, he finds an inexhaustible cascade of music. No one could testify to this better than Heinrich Joseph Baermann, the finest clarinettist of his age, who in Carl Maria von Weber<\/strong> found not only a friend but also the composer of some of the most beautiful works ever written for his instrument. At a time when the clarinet was still undergoing significant development and technical refinement, it enjoyed a golden age during the eighteenth century and the opening decades of the nineteenth. Baermann rode this wave with the confidence of a musician who had complete mastery of his instrument. Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer wrote for him, but his most enduring partnership was undoubtedly with Weber, who dedicated to him two concertos\u2014the Clarinet Concerto No. 1, Op. 73, and No. 2, Op. 74\u2014as well as the Concertino<\/em>, Op. 26, the Clarinet Quintet<\/em>, Op. 34, the Introduction, Theme and Variations<\/em>, Op. 33, and above all the Grand Duo Concertant<\/em> for clarinet and piano, Op. 48. The dedication of the latter came only after its first performance, in which Weber played the piano while the clarinet part was taken by his rival, Johann Simon Hermstedt, who evidently left Weber wishing he had chosen otherwise. The title accurately reflects the nature of the work: the piano does not merely accompany the wind instrument. Rather, the two performers engage in a true dialogue of equals, each matching the other in brilliance and virtuosity, like two soloists performing against the backdrop of an orchestra whose presence remains only imaginary. One particularly noteworthy aspect of the work is the unusual manner in which it was composed. Weber wrote it, so to speak, like a crab walking backwards\u2014from the final movement to the first. Yet there is no trace of this unconventional procedure in either the inspiration or the structural coherence of the finished composition. The work opens with an Allegro con fuoco<\/em><\/strong> in sonata form, distinguished from the outset by dazzling scale passages. This is followed by an Andante con moto<\/em><\/strong> in C minor, an expressive movement that explores the clarinet\u2019s wide dynamic and lyrical possibilities. The concluding Rondo<\/em><\/strong> combines elegance and virtuosity, alternating a central recitative-like section with a spectacular finale\u2014a veritable apotheosis of scales and arpeggios that never fails to excite audiences and earn enthusiastic applause for both performers.<\/p>

Steyr is a delightful town in Upper Austria, with an enchanting and remarkably well-preserved medieval centre. It was the birthplace of Johann Michael Vogl, the baritone and close friend of Schubert<\/strong>. Nestled among forests worthy of a Snow White<\/em> fairy tale, Schubert found himself there in the summer of 1819. Instead of the seven dwarfs, however, he was surrounded by the eight musically gifted daughters of Dr. Schellmann, in whose house he was staying. Joined by his childhood friend Albert Stadler, Schubert spent many happy days in this setting, which might well have inspired the story of the von Trapp family. He immediately struck up a warm friendship with the town\u2019s leading patron, Silvester Paumgartner, with whom he shared many interests. Director of the local mine, Paumgartner was a cultivated man and an enthusiastic amateur cellist who regularly organized musical evenings that provided a fitting conclusion to the long daytime walks that filled those holiday days. It was at Paumgartner\u2019s request that Schubert composed the Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667, \u201cThe Trout.\u201d It was also Paumgartner who chose the unusual instrumentation and who suggested the inclusion, as the fourth movement, of a set of variations on the theme of Die Forelle<\/em> (The Trout<\/em>), one of Schubert\u2019s most charming songs. The Lied had almost certainly been performed during those musical gatherings and had evidently been received with great enthusiasm. Never offered for publication during Schubert\u2019s lifetime\u2014perhaps because the composer considered its instrumentation too unconventional\u2014the Quintet was eventually published by Joseph Czerny in 1829, one year after Schubert\u2019s death. A warm summer, a group of friends, and the desire to enjoy one another\u2019s company while making music simply for pleasure: this is how Mozart\u2019s Kegelstatt Trio, KV 498\u2014the celebrated \u201cSkittles Trio\u201d\u2014came into being. And it is equally how Schubert\u2019s Quintet, D. 667, was born. The uniqueness of both works lies in the distinctive blend of instrumental colours within their ensembles: viola, clarinet, and piano in Mozart\u2019s Trio; piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass in Schubert\u2019s Quintet. Their unusual scoring reminds us of the spontaneous circumstances that gave rise to them. Chance brings together a group of people in an entirely unplanned encounter, and from a few carefree days spent in one another\u2019s company is born a child of extraordinary beauty, with eyes of a colour never before seen\u2014something no genetic engineering could ever have designed. In both cases, that is exactly what happened. And fortunate indeed are we who continue to enjoy the fruits of those happy accidents.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/details>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Gioved\u00ec 30 luglio, 19.30<\/strong><\/span>
Cortile di Fattoria, La Foce<\/h5>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
<\/strong>Concerto for oboe, violin and strings in C minor, BWV 1060
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegro
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Adagio
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegro<\/p>

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
<\/strong>Octet for strings in E flat major, op. 20
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegro moderato ma con fuoco
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Andante
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Scherzo. Allegro leggierissimo
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Presto<\/p>

Guillaume Connesson<\/strong> (1970-)
<\/strong>Sestetto per oboe, clarinetto, violino, viola, contrabasso e pianoforte
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Dynamique
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Nocturne
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Festif<\/p>

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
<\/strong>Clair de lune
<\/em>(transcr. for two pianos by Henri Dutilleux)<\/p>

Dimitri Shostakovich\u00a0(1906-1975)
<\/strong>Tarantella<\/em> in G major for two pianos\u00a0<\/p>

Camille Saint-Sa\u00ebns<\/strong> (1835-1921)
<\/strong>The Carnival of the Animals \u2013 a zoological fantasy
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Introduction and Royal March of the Lion
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Hens and Roosters
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Wild Asses
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Tortoises
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>The Elephant
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Kangaroos
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Aquarium
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Characters with Long Ears
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>The Cuckoo in the Depths of the Woods
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Aviary
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Pianists
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Fossils
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>The Swan
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Finale<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Among the achievements of twentieth-century scientific musicology is the reconstruction of a number of Bach\u2019s original concertos, composed for the court of K\u00f6then, where he served Prince Leopold between 1717 and 1723, and later transcribed for different instruments. In the case of Bach\u2019s<\/strong> Concerto in C minor for Oboe, Violin, and Strings, BWV 1060<\/strong>, for example, we possess an autograph copy in which the solo parts are assigned to two harpsichords. Bach prepared this arrangement in 1736 for the needs of Leipzig\u2019s Collegium Musicum<\/em>, adapting it from a now-lost original concerto that featured two different solo instruments. It was not until 1966 that Wilfried Fischer succeeded in reconstructing what had been lost. Through meticulous philological research, he was able to restore the violin and oboe for which the work had originally been conceived. As a result, since 1970 these recovered concertos have formed an integral part of Volume VII of the Neue Bach Ausgabe<\/em> (New Bach Edition).<\/p>

When its composer wrote the Octet in E-flat major for Strings, Op. 20<\/strong> in 1825, he was an extraordinary fifteen-year-old who already had behind him twelve string symphonies, string and piano quartets, piano pieces, and lieder\u2014in short, a catalogue remarkable both for its quantity and its quality. Mendelssohn <\/strong>was born into a family that was far more than merely affluent, one that had built its prosperity over the course of two generations thanks to the exceptional intellectual gifts of its members. His grandfather was Moses Mendelssohn, the celebrated philosopher who rose to prominence despite his humble origins, his Jewish faith, and an education largely acquired through self-study. His father, Abraham, was a multilingual banker endowed with a refined classical culture, a man whose decision to pursue finance as a profession forced him to confine his considerable musical talent to private enjoyment. It is therefore hardly surprising that Abraham\u2014much like Leopold Mozart, the father of the quintessential child prodigy\u2014did everything possible to nurture his son\u2019s evident genius. Before reaching adolescence, the young Felix spent his time not wrestling and quarrelling with other boys, but translating Greek and Italian literature into German, painting beautiful watercolours, and composing symphonies. The Octet is thus the work of a fifteen-year-old, but one possessing the compositional experience of a seasoned master. The piece is indeed both magnificent and innovative, beginning with its instrumentation: four violins, two violas, and two cellos. Until then, small chamber ensembles had almost always included wind instruments, traditionally associated with lightness and entertainment. Even Spohr\u2019s Double Quartets\u2014which appear at first glance to employ a similar ensemble\u2014were fundamentally different from Mendelssohn\u2019s Octet. In Spohr\u2019s works, two separate quartets perform together, with only one taking the leading role. Mendelssohn conceived something entirely different, and far more ambitious: a chamber ensemble with a symphonic breadth, yet one in which every string player is treated as a soloist. It was something unprecedented, and in many respects has never truly been replicated. Equally remarkable is the work\u2019s formal design. The cyclical use of thematic material runs throughout the entire composition, with the exception of the Andante. This approach avoids the thematic oppositions characteristic of Beethoven\u2019s style\u2014Beethoven was still alive when Mendelssohn wrote the Octet, making this display of artistic independence all the more impressive\u2014and instead recaptures a Haydnesque unity and coherence of a particularly striking kind. The jewel that shines most brightly within this already splendid setting is undoubtedly the third movement, the Scherzo<\/strong>. Here appears for the first time the rapid, ethereal, fairy-tale style that would become one of Mendelssohn\u2019s most recognizable hallmarks. It is therefore no surprise that the Scherzo was later orchestrated and, replacing the original Minuet in 6\/4 time, incorporated into the London premiere of the Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 11<\/strong> in 1828. The Octet concludes with a Presto<\/strong>, a breathtaking contrapuntal tour de force: a frenetic whirl of polyphonic interplay in which intricate textures reign supreme, yet never at the expense of crystalline clarity.<\/p>

The Sextet by Guillaume Connesson<\/strong> was composed for his friends \u00c9ric Le Sage and Paul Meyer for a New Year\u2019s concert given on 4 January 1998 at the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre des Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es in Paris.\u00a0 This Sextet was written with celebration and entertainment in mind. The first movement, Dynamique<\/em>, is a set of variations, a form that allows for the multiplication of rhythmic processes derived from repetitive American music. The central Nocturne<\/em> is a gentle and poignant confession sung by the clarinet against a harmonic backdrop entrusted to the strings and piano. Finally, Festif<\/em> creates a sense of joy and excitement (with an allusion to Schubert\u2019s Trout<\/em> Quintet). The score concludes with a small cadential joke.\u201d<\/p>

Everyone knows it, because it appears constantly on the soundtracks of films and television series. It played an important role in Twilight<\/em> and an even more significant one in Everything Everywhere All at Once<\/em>. We are speaking, of course, of one of the most famous piano pieces ever written: Debussy\u2019s <\/strong>Clair de lune. The third movement of the Suite bergamasque<\/em>, it was composed in 1890 together with the Suite\u2019s three other movements for the publishing house Choudens Fr\u00e8res, which had previously issued several rather commercial pi\u00e8ces de salon<\/em> by a Debussy not yet thirty years old and very much in need of earning a living. In 1891 the publisher also purchased the rights to the Suite, yet never published it. No one has ever fully explained the reasons for this decision. Evidently, what today\u2019s filmmakers regard as a piece capable of working genuine miracles\u2014instantly softening souls hardened by office life or opening stubborn shells of beauty-resistant viewers stranded before a screen\u2014was at the time considered insufficiently sentimental and sighing for the bourgeois young ladies who were expected to demonstrate their accomplishments as hostesses not only by serving cordials but also by providing easy, home-made musical entertainment. Nor did it help, back in that distant year of 1891, that Clair de lune<\/em> bore the title Promenade Sentimentale. The revision of 1905 and its publication by another publisher, Fromont, produced the version we know today, complete with its new title and its allusions to the poetry of Verlaine, as well as paving the way for the immense popularity the piece would eventually enjoy. There is another intriguing detail. Clair de lune<\/em> is written in D-flat major. In the equal temperament of the piano, D-flat corresponds enharmonically to C-sharp. It therefore shares the same tonal center as Beethoven\u2019s Piano Sonata in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 2, the work universally known\u2014though under a title not given by the composer\u2014as the Moonlight Sonata<\/em>. On the keyboard, the moon is the first black key of the octave; major and minor are its two faces. And all of us, in one way or another, feel at home in both.<\/p>

Driven by the whirlwind energy of two unleashed pianos\u2014just over a minute long, gone in the blink of an eye\u2014Shostakovich\u2019s <\/strong>Tarantella in G major for Two Pianos<\/strong> is a lively and irreverent homage to Rossini. Composed in 1954 and first performed in Moscow in its original two-piano version, it was later incorporated by the composer into the score of the 1955 Russian film The Gadfly<\/em>. The title by which the film is known today is not an arbitrary translation from Russian; it reflects the original title of the novel on which it was based, a book written not in Cyrillic but in Latin script. Published in England in 1897, it was the work of a woman whose life was remarkable to say the least: Ethel Lilian Voynich. Ethel, who married the antiquarian bookseller Wilfrid Voynich\u2014the discoverer of the manuscript that bears his name\u2014was the daughter of George Boole, the Irish mathematician whose Boolean logic lies at the foundation of modern computing and, ultimately, bears some responsibility for the countless hours humanity has spent staring at mobile phones. Her mother was Mary Everest, mathematician, philosopher, and writer, whose uncle, also named George, served as head of the Indian Survey Department and achieved immortality on every map in the world thanks to a subordinate who evidently held him in the highest esteem and wished everyone else to know it: Mount Everest. A polyglot and an inveterate traveller, Ethel toured Europe as soon as she was old enough, lived in Russia, and became a fierce opponent of the Tsarist regime as well as a point of reference for expatriate revolutionaries. Her activities attracted the attention of Sidney Reilly, the brilliant Ukrainian adventurer who, during the first quarter of the twentieth century, became one of the most daring spies in the service\u2014though not initially exclusive service\u2014of the British Empire. To put matters in perspective, Reilly\u2014polyglot, incorrigible womanizer, bon vivant, and later mythologized as the \u201cAce of Spies\u201d\u2014was among the figures who inspired Ian Fleming\u2019s creation of James Bond. He was also, quite possibly, the ideal model for the protagonist of The Gadfly<\/em>, Voynich\u2019s novel, which recounts the adventures of Arthur Burton, a charismatic Englishman who moves to Italy during the Risorgimento and fights both Austrian domination and religious obscurantism. He does not wage war on the battlefield but rather with a sharp pen on the pages of newspapers, writing under the pseudonym The Gadfly<\/em>, until he is eventually unmasked, captured, and executed. Such a romantic hero\u2014a flamboyant man of letters, historically implausible and entirely out of step with his times\u2014deservedly sank into obscurity in his native Britain, as well as in Italy, his spiritual second homeland. In China and the Soviet Union, however, The Gadfly<\/em> achieved extraordinary popularity, selling millions of copies. Evidently, the story of an English imperial subject sacrificing his life in pursuit of the defeat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire proved highly appealing in vast nations afflicted by hardship and famine, especially given the exotic flavour such a tale must have possessed there. News of this unexpected success reached a bewildered Ethel Voynich in the mid-1950s, leaving her astonished, though earning her only a few crumbs in royalties. And here we may return to Shostakovich\u2019s Tarantella<\/strong>. It provided precisely the touch of local colour required for the film adaptation of the novel: a quick brushstroke that, through its irresistible rhythm, made Italy instantly recognisable. Today, whenever this Tarantella is performed, one likes to imagine Rossini and Shostakovich smiling from their little cloud, exchanging a knowing glance of mutual understanding.<\/p>

Like Mozart, Camille Saint-Sa\u00ebns<\/strong> was a child prodigy. He was composing at the age of five, and at eleven he gave his first public piano recital at the Salle Pleyel. He became the most celebrated French pianist and organist of his era, performing throughout the world\u2014in Europe, the United States, South America, Asia, and Africa. Only the complete lack of suitable musical institutions prevented him from receiving invitations to perform in Australia and Antarctica, realms then inhabited chiefly by Her Majesty\u2019s convicts and by penguins. In addition to being an organist, pianist, composer, and teacher, he possessed an insatiably curious intellect. He ventured into poetry and music criticism, not to mention the scientific interests expected of a nineteenth-century intellectual nourished on a diet of positivism. He studied acoustics and astronomy, even delivering a learned lecture before the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Astronomique de France on the phenomenon of mirages. French music owes an immense debt to Saint-Sa\u00ebns: the vital grafting of German Classicism and Romanticism onto the French tradition, the rediscovery of seventeenth and early eighteenth-century French music, and the creation of the nation\u2019s first great body of chamber music. In short, he became the acknowledged founder of a major school and a major tradition. Having proven himself such an all-knowing patriarch, he lived to nearly ninety and even enjoyed the good fortune of dying in the manner dreamed of by heterosexual men since youth. Yet his exceptional longevity gradually transformed him into a survivor and, quite literally, a monument to himself. Saint-Sa\u00ebns was among the very few artists who, amid the abundance of honours bestowed upon him\u2014honorary doctorates, Legions of Honour, and countless distinctions\u2014had the unusual experience of seeing a statue erected in his honour while he was still alive.<\/p>

True, he stormed out of the premiere of The Rite of Spring after only a few measures, asking what on earth the instrument was that had begun the piece, and being told that it was a bassoon. He had his reasons: bassoons had never before ventured alone into such a register, and he saw no reason why they should, especially when sent there by Igor Stravinsky. But he was merely a rigorous gentleman, ill-tempered in the way that all strong personalities tend to be, cultivating both his sympathies and antipathies with equal determination and taking great care never to confuse the two. The fact remains that Saint-Sa\u00ebns\u2019s music\u2014indeed, all of it\u2014is exceptionally well crafted, highly respectful of its audience, and therefore consistently pleasurable to hear. Some critics, glancing at the dates of works such as Violons dans le soir<\/em> (1908) or the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano<\/em> (1921), may wrinkle their noses and think that such music was rather too easy a solution for those years. They may not be entirely wrong. Yet Saint-Sa\u00ebns consciously chose to remain faithful to himself and to his public image as a great conservative until the end of his life. He did so so deliberately that even his sense of humour became a private vice. When he composed his most famous work, The Carnival of the Animals, in 1886\u2014the piece everyone knows even if few can name it\u2014he kept it hidden. In many respects it is an extraordinary work, heir to the tradition of wit that runs through French culture from Voltaire onward, though it requires no intellectual preparation whatsoever to enjoy. It is music created simply to amuse, and it succeeds in the fullest sense of the word, as do few works by few composers. One thinks of Gioachino Rossini, whose Barber of Seville<\/em> appears as a \u201cfossil\u201d in the movement of that name, alongside nursery tunes; or of Jacques Offenbach, whose turtles dance a slowed-down version of the famous Can-Can. Yet beneath the laughter, Saint-Sa\u00ebns was lampooning the entire musical society of his day: pianists, braying critics (the \u201cCharacters with Long Ears\u201d), and even the still-living Hector Berlioz, portrayed as a gigantic elephant dancing the Dance of the Sylphs<\/em> while occupying all the available space on stage. For this reason, he performed the work only for himself and never published it. With exquisite malice, he allowed only one movement to circulate during his lifetime: The Swan, a magnificent masterpiece of scientifically calculated sentimentality, so perfectly successful that ballet dancers in tutus immediately transformed it into The Dying Swan<\/em>. It became a warhorse of bad taste, an invasive weed of the stage, the bane and delight of dance recitals across the globe. The remainder of the work remained hidden for thirty-five years, a secret too embarrassing to be made public. One wonders what Saint-Sa\u00ebns would say today if he knew that we remember him above all for what he regarded as mere trifles\u2014and that we perform them in evening dress, with the utmost seriousness.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/details>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Sabato 1 agosto, 19.30<\/strong><\/span>
Cortile di Fattoria, La Foce<\/h5>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Gabriel Faur\u00e9 (1845-1924)
<\/strong>Quartet No. 1 for piano and strings in C minor op. 15
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegro molto moderato
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Scherzo. Allegro vivo
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Adagio
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegro molto<\/p>

Zolt\u00e1n Kod\u00e1ly<\/strong> (1882-1967)
<\/strong>Duo for violin and cello op. 7
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegro serioso, non troppo
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Adagio-Andante
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Maestoso e largamente, ma non troppo lento-Presto<\/p>

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
<\/strong>Sextet for strings op. 70 in D minor, Souvenir de Florence
<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegro con spirito
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em> Adagio cantabile e con moto
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegro moderato
\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Allegro vivace\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Within French music, Gabriel Faur\u00e9<\/b><\/span> occupies a position of the highest importance, both as a composer and as a teacher. Yet while his gifts as an educator were never questioned\u2014among his pupils were Maurice Ravel<\/span> and Nadia Boulanger<\/span>\u2014full appreciation of his music was initially confined to true connoisseurs, and only later did the wider public learn to embrace it. The reason lies as much in his character as in his art. Faur\u00e9 was a reserved man, almost entirely devoid of vanity, deeply focused on his work. This discretion, pursued with unwavering determination, was reflected in his life and in his music no less than in the image he left to posterity. Even the great tragedy of his life\u2014deafness\u2014was borne with the utmost privacy, so much so that no one felt compelled to surround it with the pages dripping with heroism and sentimentality that were lavished upon another, more famous hearing-impaired composer. In keeping with his temperament, Faur\u00e9\u2019s output is centred primarily on chamber music. With the sole exception of the String Quartet, Op. 121<\/span><\/strong>, his chamber works revolve entirely around the piano, which serves as the pivot around which the various instrumental combinations are organized. After all, Faur\u00e9 himself was a gifted pianist, greatly admired for the beauty and refinement of his touch. The splendid Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 15<\/span><\/strong>, completed in 1879 when its composer was just over forty, is no exception to this rule. Although rich in brilliant moments, the work is far removed from the muscular intensity and overflowing vigour of the German Romantic tradition. Instead, it seeks an expressiveness that always remains subject to the control of restraint. It is precisely in this elegant poise that the work\u2019s charm resides. The Quartet captivates its listeners because it never yields to late-Romantic grandiloquence or to easy sentimentality, maintaining throughout a balance of refinement, clarity, and emotional discretion that is quintessentially Faur\u00e9an.<\/span><\/p>

If B\u00e9la Bart\u00f3k<\/span> today stands as one of the founding figures of twentieth-century music, Zolt\u00e1n<\/span><\/b> Kod\u00e1ly<\/b><\/span>\u2014who shared the first part of his career with Bart\u00f3k and achieved remarkably similar results\u2014is remembered above all as an educator, the creator of the Kod\u00e1ly Method, still widely used today. Although never formally codified into a single system, this collection of principles and practices for music education has become universally associated with his name. Yet, like Bart\u00f3k, Kod\u00e1ly was a composer of the first rank, lacking only the tragic aura\u2014poverty, exile, or an untimely death from leukemia across the Atlantic\u2014that helped shape Bart\u00f3k\u2019s enduring myth. Nor do his achievements end there. A pioneer of ethnomusicology, Kod\u00e1ly was among the first scholars to take a sustained interest in Hungarian folk traditions. Beginning in 1905, he undertook recording expeditions in remote villages, collecting traditional melodies and rhythms that would form the basis of his doctoral dissertation the following year. Kod\u00e1ly\u2019s Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7<\/span><\/strong>, composed in 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War, reflects the pioneering field research that he had begun in 1906 together with his friend and colleague B\u00e9la Bart\u00f3k, whom he had drawn into the project. Traveling through the most remote regions of Hungary to record and transcribe peasant songs, the two musicians laid the foundations of scientific ethnomusicology. Their work also led them to move beyond the fashionable \u201cGypsy style\u201d of the period\u2014the style exploited by Franz Liszt<\/span> in his Hungarian Rhapsodies<\/em> and by Johannes Brahms<\/span> in his Hungarian Dances<\/em>\u2014which had long been, mistakenly, regarded as authentically Hungarian. Instead, they sought to create a genuinely native national musical school, founded upon a conscious and direct engagement with Hungary\u2019s true folk heritage. Kod\u00e1ly himself clearly articulated this artistic vision. Writing in 1925 about his own music and that of Bart\u00f3k, he observed: \u201cSome modern Hungarian works have apparently created abroad the impression of a musical revolution. It would be more accurate to describe them as conservative. Our intention was not to break with the past, but to renew and strengthen our ties to it by recreating the atmosphere of forgotten ancient melodies and building new structures from their scattered stones. These old songs are our relics; their long-silent creators are our true ancestors.\u201d Where Bart\u00f3k ultimately pushed this fusion of folk tradition and art music toward more radical and modern harmonic solutions, Kod\u00e1ly maintained a language more firmly rooted in lyricism and late-Romantic suggestion. These qualities are particularly evident in the intense and often troubled instrumental dialogue of the Duo for Violin and Cello<\/span><\/strong>, a work whose distinctive character begins with its very unusual ensemble.<\/span><\/p>

Known as Souvenir de Florence<\/span><\/strong>, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky<\/b><\/span>\u2019s<\/b> String Sextet in D minor, Op. 70<\/span><\/strong> was intended, at least in its title, as a gesture of affection toward the Tuscan city where the composer had spent the first months of 1890 while working on The Queen of Spades<\/span>. The work itself was composed during the summer of that same year, after Tchaikovsky had returned to Russia. In reality, however, it contains very little that is specifically Florentine or even Italian beyond its affectionate title, as the composer himself well understood. Writing to his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck<\/span>, he remarked: \u201cI hope you will be pleased to know that, besides The Queen of Spades<\/em>, I have composed a work for strings… You will find woven into its notes the memory of my great love for \u2018beautiful Florence,\u2019 although I have employed no Italian or Tuscan melodies. I have merely transferred onto paper the sense of song that the name of this dream city always awakens in me.\u201d In November 1890, Tchaikovsky arranged a private performance of the Sextet. His friends and colleagues Alexander Glazunov<\/span> and Anatoly Lyadov<\/span>, while generally admiring the work, expressed certain reservations. As a result, the Scherzo and the Finale were revised. In this new form, the Sextet received its first public performance in St. Petersburg on 7 December 1890. Tchaikovsky\u2019s chamber music output is relatively small, amounting essentially to a handful of works: in addition to this Sextet, the three string quartets, the Piano Trio, and Souvenir d\u2019un lieu cher<\/em>. Yet these are exceptionally successful compositions, eloquent testimony to the melodic gift of their creator. The Sextet, the last major contribution Tchaikovsky made to the field of chamber music, is perhaps the finest of them all. The expressive intensity that permeates the work, the singable beauty of its melodies, and the incisiveness of its harmonic language are fully worthy of one of the most enviable creative imaginations in the entire history of music.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/details>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Programme Notes Thursday 23 July, 7:30pm Palazzo Piccolomini, Pienza Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)Sonata for piano and violin in E flat major, KV 380\u00a0\u00a0 Allegro\u00a0\u00a0 Andante con moto\u00a0\u00a0 Rondo. Allegro Maurice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":287,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-3614","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nEnglish Programme Notes - Incontri in Terra Di Siena<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.itslafoce.org\/it\/programme\/english-notes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"it_IT\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"English Programme Notes - Incontri in Terra Di Siena\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Programme Notes Thursday 23 July, 7:30pm Palazzo Piccolomini, Pienza Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)Sonata for piano and violin in E flat major, KV 380\u00a0\u00a0 Allegro\u00a0\u00a0 Andante con moto\u00a0\u00a0 Rondo. 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