On Saturday 11 June 2022 at 8 pm the conductor emeritus Zubin Mehta on the podium of the great hall of the Theater, leading the Maggio Orchestra, for his second symphonic appointment during the 84th Festival of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

On the program the symphonic poem “Also sprach Zarathustra” by Richard Strauss and the Symphony n. 1 by Gustav Mahler.

Florence, 9 June 2022 – Maestro Zubin Mehta, at the helm of the Maggio Orchestra, returns to the podium of the great hall of the Theater on Saturday 11 June at 8 pm, for the third symphonic concert during the 84th Maggio Festival, the second directed by Maestro Metha after the concert on May 26, which marked the return of the maestro after a few months of absence and received with great warmth by the public. On the lecterns Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus spoke Zarathustra) op. 30, a symphonic poem by Richard Strauss composed between February and August 1896 and performed for the first time on the following 27 November in Frankfurt conducted by Strauss himself and of which the master Mehta is among the most expert and appreciated interpreters in the world and the Symphony n. 1 in D major Titan, by Gustav Mahler, which between its genesis and subsequent modifications cost the Austrian composer almost 25 years of hard work. The two compositions were performed for the first time in May respectively in February 1932 and March 1936, directed by Vittorio Gui and Bruno Walter. Zubin Mehta will also conduct the two final concerts of the 84th May Festival: the appointments are for 13 July 2022 with the Concert for Florence in the Cavea del Teatro offered free of charge to citizens and on 14 July 2022 at the Mehta hall, for the last Festival show.

Richard Strauss – Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus spoke Zarathustra)
From February to August 1896 Richard Strauss was engaged in writing Also sprach Zarathustra, his sixth symphonic poem inspired by the philosophical essay of the same name by Friedrich Nietzsche. The German musician – who in those years was at the height of his career – was fascinated by the figure of the mystical prophet Zarathustra and by the Nietzschean concept of Übermensch, the superman who by virtue of his individual power manages to control his own destiny. Also sprach Zarathustra op. 30 is divided into nine sections: an introduction plus eight episodes bearing the titles of as many paragraphs or chapters of the philosophical text without following the original order. In fact, Strauss was keen to clarify that his composition was freely taken from Nietzsche without wishing to be a pure musical illustration of philosophical concepts and as a programmatic indication he placed the first paragraph of the preface of the essay at the beginning of the score. After years of meditation and isolation on the mountains, Zarathustra decides to return to men to dispense his wisdom. His journey begins with the greeting to the rising sun, which in the famous introduction of the symphonic poem is entrusted to the indistinct tremolo of the double basses from which the gaudy theme of Nature sung by the trumpets rises. But Zarathustra’s multiple experiences take on the most diverse outlines in Strauss’s poem: from the quotation of the Gregorian Creed (first episode) to the complex escape based on the theme of man (fifth episode), from the unbridled and vital waltz that animates the penultimate episode, the ecstatic song of the finale in which the mysterious dissonances dictated by tonal ambiguity fade away.

Gustav Mahler – Symphony No. 1 in D major, Titan
The first of his nine symphonies engaged Mahler for most of his career, from the first sketches of 1884, to the last and definitive touches in 1909. A composition with a troubled genesis, marked by continuous rethinking and revisions, the Symphony No. 1 was performed in three different versions over the years. The doubt about which form to give to his first symphonic work haunted Mahler for a long time, uncertain whether to follow the path of absolute music or program music, the two trends of his time. In the first performance in Budapest in 1888 he presented it as a symphonic poem, without however giving precise indications on its programmatic content, five years later in the execution in Hamburg he renamed it Titan, a symphonic poem in the form of a symphony”, inspired by a novel by Jean Paul, finally, in the Berlin version of 1896 canceled every title and every caption naming it definitively Symphony n. 1 in D minor, fearing that the extra-musical contents could be overrated and misunderstood by the public. Among the most radical changes that have occurred over the years also the reduction from five to four movements and the expansion of the orchestral staff. But despite the removal of any textual reference, the symphony betrays its roots in the abundance of elements dear to Mahlerian poetics: the musical memory of one’s childhood (rhythms of military marches, blasts of trumpets, popular melodies), the privileged relationship with the romantic literature in the self-quotations of the contemporary Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, the contemplation of the immensity of Nature, the feeling of alienation of man in front of the mystery of life, all enclosed between moments of suspension, despair and final triumph.