87th Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Festival

Zubin Mehta

Saturday June 21st 2025 at 8 pm – in the Hall named after him – maestro Zubin Mehta on the podium leading the Maggio Orchestra for the closing concert of the 87th edition of the Maggio Musicale Festival.

The program includes music by Ludwig van Beethoven and Richard Strauss.

Thanks to Ferragamo for their support
 

Florence, June 19th 2025 – After almost three months packed with three operas (Salome, Der junge Lord and Aida), the ballet Caravaggio with Roberto Bolle, twelve concerts and the numerous events of the “Maggio aperto” and the show for families, the last symphonic concert of the 87th Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Festival is on the bill, which will continue with performances of Aida until July 1st 2025. Saturday, June 21st – at 8 pm, in the Mehta Hall – maestro Zubin Mehta will take the podium, leading the Maggio Orchestra, for a concert with music by Ludwig van Beethoven and Richard Strauss. He will be joined during the two performances by Amira Abouzahra, soloist in the Beethoven concerto, and Salvatore Quaranta in the performance of the Straussian composition.

The concert opens with the Concerto in D major for violin and orchestra op. 61 by Ludwig van Beethoven: the score - begun in the autumn of 1806 - was ready in a few weeks and on 23 December of that same year the Concerto op. 61 debuted with Clement as soloist at the Theater an der Wien, arousing conflicting opinions. The initial distrust towards this work, which would find deserved affirmation in the following decades, was dictated by its lack of virtuosity. Unlike other concertos for violin and orchestra, where the soloist shows off his abilities with virtuosity of all kinds on the four strings, Beethoven's Concerto op. 61 is instead marked by an elegant and singable writing that allows little for pure virtuosity. The protagonist during the Concerto in D major, as solo violin, is Amira Abouzahra: she has already participated and won numerous international competitions, including the “Jugend musiziert” in Germany, the International Ilona Fehér Violin Competition in Hungary, Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra in Virtuosos Talent Show and the String Soloist Award at the ISA Festival performing on prestigious stages such as the Lincoln Center in New York, Covent Garden in London, the Palace of Arts in Budapest and the Old Parliament House in Singapore.

Recently, together with Maestro Mehta, she was among the protagonists of the Maggio tour in China last summer.

Maestro Zubin Mehta, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and Amira Abouzahra will also be protagonists on June 26th in Ravenna, at Palazzo Mauro De André, for another symphonic event.

The evening closes with “Ein Heldenleben op. 40”. The last of Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems, Ein Heldenleben (Life of a Hero) op. 40 was composed in 1898 and premiered in Frankfurt the following year – in March 1899 – by the author himself. The great season of symphonic poems ended with an autobiographical work, since the hero of the title is the composer himself. “The program of Ein Heldenleben was ready in my mind before I composed the music,” says Strauss, who in a letter to the publisher Spitzweg also says that he created the work to satisfy “a very urgent need for heroism.”

Soloist during the Straussian piece is Salvatore Quaranta, concertmaster of the first violins of the Maggio Orchestra.
 

The program:

Ludwig van Beethoven
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61

Throughout his career, Beethoven rarely devoted himself to compositions for violin and orchestra; thus, apart from the two Romances op. 40 and op. 50, the Concerto in D major op. 61 represents not only his greatest work in the genre but also the only concerto written for this instrument. The opportunity was provided by his acquaintance with the violinist Franz Clement, a well-known virtuoso of the time, director of the Theater an der Wien, as well as the dedicatee and first performer of the work. The score, begun in the autumn of 1806, was ready in a few weeks and on 23 December of that same year the Concerto op. 61 debuted with Clement as soloist at the Theater an der Wien, arousing conflicting opinions. The initial distrust towards this work - which would find deserved affirmation in the following decades - was dictated by its lack of virtuosity. Unlike other concertos for violin and orchestra, where the soloist shows off his skills with all sorts of virtuosity on the four strings, Beethoven's Concerto op. 61 is instead marked by an elegant and singable writing that gives little to pure virtuosity. Even the dialectical relationship between soloist and orchestra is affected by this choice since it is devoid of strong contrasts of timbre and dynamics and is not resolved, as one would expect, with the exclusive prevalence of the soloist over the orchestra but with a complicit dialogue between the two parts.

Richard Strauss
“Ein Heldenleben op. 40”

The last of Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems, Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life) op. 40 was composed in 1898 and premiered in Frankfurt the following year – on 3 March 1899 – by the author himself. The great season of symphonic poems ended with an autobiographical work, since the hero of the title is the composer himself. “The program for Ein Heldenleben was ready in my mind before I composed the music,” says Strauss, who in a letter to the publisher Spitzweg also says that he created the work to satisfy “a very urgent need for heroism.” A heroism that is reflected in the chosen key of E flat major – the same as Beethoven’s Eroica – and in the use of a powerful orchestra, especially reinforced in the brass section, “with many horns which are always a clear sign of heroic spirit,” the composer noted with satisfaction. A self-portrait made without reserve, therefore, the fruit of an artist fully aware of his own value and of a success that was now consolidated. Divided into six sections (The Hero, The Adversaries, The Companion, The Battlefield, The Works of Peace, The Withdrawal from the World and The End of the Hero) Ein Heldenleben is a reflection by the composer on his own existence but also a balance of the artistic experiences lived up to that moment. It is no coincidence that Strauss scatters the score with self-citations taken from previous symphonic poems that combine with particularly effective musical choices: the theme of the hero, vigorous and vital, that of the adversaries, petulant and grotesque, the theme of the beloved woman entrusted to the persuasive timbre of the solo violin, up to the poetic final episode that seals the quiet finally achieved by the hero after having faced a thousand adventures.