The Czech maestro Jakub Hrůša conducts today, Sunday, at 7:00 p.m., in the Alfredo Kraus Auditorium in the palms of Gran Canariato the Bamberg Symphony within the 39th International Music Festival of Canary Islands and in the company of the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. The orchestra, which yesterday performed in Tenerife, is a group recognized worldwide for its characteristic deep, round and dazzling sound, which on this occasion will perform works by Beethoven, Stravisky and Dvorak. The musical popularizer Ricardo Ducatenzeiler will previously offer an introductory talk at 6:00 p.m. in a room attached to the auditorium.
Parallel to these concerts, the festival will carry out a pilot experience with the collaboration of this orchestra, aimed at helping to somehow offset the carbon footprint left by the musicians’ plane transfer to the islands. A gesture that will consist of a symbolic planting of trees. This first planting will take place today, at 1:00 p.m., in the municipality of Tamaraceite, in Gran Canaria.
Tonight’s concert will begin with Overture Leonora III. Op 72a, by Beethoven. The German genius wrote four overtures for his only opera, originally named Leonore (1805) after his leading lady, but the composer deemed the first three inappropriate for curtain-raising. So, starting from scratch, he produced in 1814 the succinct Fidelio Overture, a tense, superbly proportioned piece.
For the next piece, Violin Concerto in D, by I. Stravinsky, Patricia Kopatchinskaja will join. The idea of writing a violin concerto was suggested to Stravinsky in 1930 by Willy Strecker. The composer’s initial response was: “But I’m not a violinist!” He was, in fact, a pianist. The world premiere took place on October 23, 1931 in Berlin with the composer conducting the Berlin Radio Symphony. Stravinsky would later comment: “The Violin Concerto was not inspired or modeled on any example. I don’t like standard violin concertos, not Mozart, Beethoven, or Brahms. In my opinion, the only masterpiece in this field is that of Schoenberg”.
The last notes will be those of Symphony No. 9, From the New World, A. Dvorak. By the mid-20th century, this work was so much a part of American culture that it was familiar to people who had never heard it. Now it sounds like a cliché. Dvořák started the symphony at the end of 1892 and finished it the following May. New York’s Carnegie Hall was the scene of the first performance of the most famous work by a living composer in America. It was December 15, 1893. Its reception was a great triumph, and gave rise to enthusiastic discussion among the musical intelligentsia about how truly American it was. A debate that continued open.
Created in 1946 at the initiative of musicians from different countries who had fled their homes because of World War II, the Bamberg Symphony sinks its roots into geniuses such as Mahler and Mozart. Throughout its history it has offered almost 7,500 concerts in more than 500 cities and 63 countries. With the honorary title of the Bavarian State Philharmonic Orchestra, it regularly tours the world as a cultural ambassador for that region and also for all of Germany. Under the baton of the Czech conductor Jakub Hrůša, who will become the artistic director of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden from London, has made outstanding and multiple recordings, some of them award-winning. Gramophone places Hrůša at “the pinnacle of greatness”. The last time she performed in Las Palmas was at the 33rd edition of the FIMC, directing the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
In this concert, the Moldovan violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, an interpreter with a long international career who regularly collaborates with the main orchestras, conductors and festivals in Europe and the rest of the world, will perform as soloist. It is said of her that she is “a violinist who conquers the stages with her eruptive way of playing, like a force of nature” (Der Taggerspiegel). She stands out for her creative capacity and it is common to see her act barefoot on stage.
