Performed by Cameristi della Scala at the Embassy of Italy
Composers in the 19th century produced a panoply of fantasies, paraphrases and transcriptions designed to bring the world of opera into the household – but what about the concert hall? Cameristi della Scala explores Giuseppe Verdi’s music in instrumental adaptations by his contemporaries, all featuring a string soloist with chamber orchestra. These potpourris were originally composed for soloist accompanied by piano, but Cameristi’s own Gianluca Scandola has created elegant new orchestrations of the pieces that present Verdi re-reimagined!
The Cameristi della Scala is comprised of principal players from the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala and the Filarmonica della Scala, and is programming these unique fantasies throughout Verdi’s bicentennial year.
IL TROVATORE
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This event is part of 2013 – Year of Italian Culture in the U.S., the initiative held under the auspices of the President of the Italian Republic, organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Embassy of Italy, with the support of Corporate Ambassadors Eni and Intesa Sanpaolo.
LOCATION
Embassy of Italy
Auditorium
3000 Whitehaven St, NW
Washington, DC
RSVP
Please click on “Make a Reservation” by October 9, 2013 at 2 PM
The Reservation System will allow you to register until we reach
capacity or by the event’s date and time above (whichever comes
first.)
PLEASE NOTE: RESERVATION IS REQUIRED FOR OUR EVENTS FOR SECURITY REASONS. A RESERVATION IS NOT A GUARANTEE OF A SEAT. OUR VENUE HAS LIMITED SEATING AND WE WILL ACCOMODATE GUESTS ON A FIRST-COME FIRST-SERVED BASIS. GUESTS WITHOUT SEATS ARE WELCOME TO STAND IF THEY LIKE.
MORE INFO
Verdian fantasias in the mirror of the virtuosi
In 19th century, before the advent of music recordings and broadcasts, mass media and the internet, the popularity of musical theater mostly relied on transcriptions and adaptations.
It is important to distinguish between the simple transcription made for practical purposes on the one hand (i.e. a vocal and piano score allowing the enjoyment of operatic music at home), and the more complex rewriting and paraphrasing aimed at a public performance on the other.
The simple transcription merely adapts the musical content of a composition to allow a multitude of smaller ensembles, often consisting of amateurs, to perform it, while fantasias, paraphrases, variations and reminiscences imply its modification and adaptation for the concert hall.
The author of transcriptions, usually not a musician of great fame, fades away in the anonymity of a procedure of little significance; the author of fantasias and paraphrases instead is often a renowned virtuoso who, as it was the case with Paganini and Liszt, employs popular opera excerpts as a pre-text, to showcase his or her musical inspiration as a composer and his/ her bravura skills as a performer.
The structure of these pieces may resemble the theme-and-variations form, with a free introductory section and an extended finale, or it may condense and revisit the dramatic content of a whole opera through the selection, editing, and elaboration of some of its most memorable melodies into a new musical texture. This procedure usually highlights the instrumental transposition of the singing (always an ideal point of reference for the violin) and the sparkle of the virtuoso ingenuity.
Verdi’s operas were, of course, the object of great attention by 19th century virtuosi. The fantasias in this program were all published by Ricordi; the piano accompaniment has been transcribed for chamber orchestra (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn and strings) by Gianluca Scandola.
Camillo Sivori (Genoa, 1815 – 1894), who Paganini recognized as his only true student, and for whom he even wrote some pages, was one of the greatest violinists of his time. His impressive career took him all over Europe and the Americas. Appreciated by Rossini and Verdi, Sivori played together with Liszt, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Thalberg, Joachim, and formed a partnership with two of the protagonists of the Italian and European musical scene of the 19th century: Giovanni Bottesini and Alfredo Piatti. Interestingly, Sivori not only was a brilliant performer of his own compositions, but also received the admiration of his contemporaries for his devotion to the Classical and Romantic chamber music repertoire, an uncommon feature for an Italian virtuoso of the 19th century. The Fantasia for Violin and Piano Il trovatore op. 20 was composed in 1862 (Verdi’s opera was first performed at the Teatro Apollo in Rome in 1853).
Another personality at international level was Antonio Bazzini (Brescia, 1818 – Milan, 1897). Like Sivori, he was an extraordinary virtuoso. The multifaceted nature of his artistry is really striking. As a young man he was admired all over Europe as a violinist and a composer. Bazzini lived for some time in Germany (1841-45), where he enjoyed the admiration of Mendelssohn and, in particular, Schumann, who dedicated an enthusiastic article on the “Neue Zeitschrift für Musik” (1843) to him. He later lived in Spain and Paris. After retiring from the concert scene in 1864, Bazzini gradually abandoned the virtuoso genres (his La ronde des lutins op. 25, 1852, is still in the repertoire) to focus on symphonic and chamber music, and he became one of the main exponents of the Italian instrumental renaissance of the late 19th century. His quartets and quintets for strings are among the most significant works of this renaissance. In 1873, Bazzini was appointed professor of composition, and in 1882 director of the Conservatory of Milan, where Catalani, Mascagni, and Puccini were among his students. The Fantasia for Violin and Orchestra or Piano La traviata op. 50 dates back to 1865 (the opera was staged at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice in 1853).
Trained as a cellist, Luigi Mancinelli (Orvieto, 1848 – Rome, 1921) soon established himself as a conductor. Admired among others by Boito and Wagner, Mancinelli was probably the most important Italian conductor of his generation. He traveled extensively in Europe and the Americas, and was also acclaimed as an accomplished interpreter of German music (Wagner included). However, he was never able to muster much success as a composer, in spite of the international circulation of some of his operas, like Ero e Leandro, which was based on a libretto by Boito (1896), and the variety of his production, which in later years even included music for cinema. For his own instrument, the cello, Mancinelli wrote the fantasias on Don Carlo (1870) and Aida (1873) (the original French version of Don Carlos premiered at Paris’ Opéra in 1867, while Aida was first performed at the Khedivial Opera House in Cairo in 1871).
Cesare Fertonani
Program
LUIGI MANCINELLI (1848-1921)
Fantasia sul Don Carlo di Giuseppe Verdi
Fantasia su Aida
for cello and chamber orchestra
ERNESTO CAMILLO SIVORI (1815-1894)
Fantasia sull’opera Il Trovatore, op. 20 (1865)
for violin and chamber orchestra
ANTONIO BAZZINI (1818-1897)
Fantasia su La Traviata, op. 50 (1865)
for violin and chamber orchestra
All works orchestrated by Gianluca Scandola
Cameristi della Scala
Francesco Manara, violin solo
Massimo Polidori, cello solo
Salvatore Quaranta
Gianluca Scandola, violins
Joel Imperial, viola
Jacob Ludwig, cello
Alessandro Serra, doublebass
Flavio Alziati, flute
Alberto Negroni, oboe
Mauro Ferrando, clarinet
Laura Costa, bassoon
Claudio Martini, horn
Founded in 1982, La Scala Chamber Orchestra is an ensemble with
a rich history. Its musicians are selected from Milan’s renowned
La Scala Orchestras: the Filarmonica della Scala and the Orchestra of
Teatro alla Scala.
La Scala Chamber Orchestra has performed in the most prestigious
theatres and concert halls of the world and collaborated with
internationally known conductors and soloists.
In July 2007 at Piazza del Duomo in Milan, before an audience of more
than 10,000 people, La Scala Chamber Orchestra performed the four
seasons of Antonio Vivaldi and Astor Piazzolla, with Francesco Manara
as a soloist. The concert received rave reviews, and was so well received
that it was performed again in Paris, at the Opera theatre in Warsaw, in
Spain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Lithuania, Latvia and in Moscow at
the Ciaikovskij hall.
At the annual concert at Piazza del Duomo in 2008, audiences were
thrilled by a performance by La Scala Chamber Orchestra of an
original composition by composer Carlo Galante, specially dedicated
to Milan’s Cathedral. Continuing this great tradition, in 2009 La Scala
Chamber Orchestra was excited and honored to present an original
composition of the famous composer and cellist Giovanni Sollima.
La Scala Chamber Orchestra’s repertoire includes the most important
compositions for chamber orchestras from the 18th century to the present
day, with particular attention paid to little-played works by 19th
century Italian composers. Many of these pieces are unpublished and
are characterized by highly virtuosic solo parts which are well suited
to display the extraordinary talents of La Scala Chamber Orchestra’s
soloists, all principles in the Filarmonica della Scala and well known
concert artists on the international scene.
The musicians of La Scala Chamber Orchestra have consistently
worked with the greatest conductors of the world who routinely make
guest appearances at Teatro alla Scala, such as Riccardo Muti, Carlo
Maria Giulini, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Daniel Barenboim.
These coveted experiences have in? uenced their sound, bringing out
musical characteristics of timbre and phrasing which are certainly
unique in the Italian and international panorama of chamber groups.
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