Alessandro Bonato: Thursday, 19th September 2024, 8 pm
Thursday, September 19, 2024 at 8 pm.
Second symphonic concert of the Maggio Theater's Fall Season.
Alessandro Bonato, making his Maggio debut, conducts the orchestra with a program of compositions by Sergei Rachmaninov and Pëtr Il’ič Čajkovskij.
Soloist on piano Francesco Libetta takes on the celebrated “Rach2,” Sergei Rachmaninov's Concerto No. 2 in C minor Op. 18 for piano and orchestra
Florence, 18th September 2024 – On Thursday, September 19, 2024, at 8 p.m., the theater's fall programming continues with the second symphony concert in the Zubin Mehta Hall: making his Maggio debut, Alessandro Bonato on the podium conducting the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.
On the bill, a program entirely devoted to Russian music: opening the evening is Sergei Rachmaninov's celebrated Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, for piano and orchestra, presented in Moscow on Nov. 9, 1901, under the baton of Alexander Ziloti (with Rachmaninov as soloist). Soloist is Francesco Libetta. It is a composition that combines very difficult piano writing with a melodic emphasis full of pathos, with the piano taking center stage over the orchestra, here called upon to support the soloist. The piece is also famous for being much quoted in film mass culture, or in the field of pop music, including the scene in the movie The Seven Year Itch in which actress Marylin Monroe was being 'shaken up' by the music.
Alessandro Bonato is considered one of Italy's most promising young conductors; he was born in Verona and studied violin, composition and conducting at the local conservatory with Piercarlo Orizio. He came to international attention in 2018, when he was only 23 years old, winning third prize at the “Malko International Competition” in Copenhagen and was the youngest Principal Conductor of the Orchestra Filarmonica Marchigiana for the two-year period 2021-2022. In Italy he has conducted the Orchestra della Toscana, the Filarmonica della Scala, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai, the Filarmonica del Festival Pianistico Internazionale di Brescia e Bergamo and is a regular guest of I Pomeriggi Musicali, while abroad he has been a guest of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and the CRR Symphony Orchestra in Istanbul. From season 2024/25 he will be Guest Conductor of the Haydn Orchestra of Trento and Bolzano. “We will perform pieces from the Russian repertoire,” explains Maestro Alessandro Bonato, ”beginning with Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2, one of the most famous in the entire piano repertoire, and continuing with the suite from Swan Lake, which contains the best-known ballet passages we all know. In closing, there will be the Italian Capriccio: a dedication by the composer to Italy, a country to which he came several times, in which we will hear many themes reminiscent of our music.”
Soloist at the piano during the performance is Francesco Libetta, who returns to Maggio after his concert with the Bartolomeo Cristofori Academy last April: an Italian pianist, Steinway Artist, considered among the most versatile and esteemed in the world (whose recordings have won multiple awards from Diapason, Le Monde de la Musique, Classique and Amadeus), he has collaborated with conductors such as Antonio Pappano, Marc Andreae and Christian Mandeal; artists, including Giovanni Sollima, Anna Caterina Antonacci, and Mariella Devia; actors such as Alessio Boni, Marisa Laurito, Alessandro Preziosi, and Simona Marchini; and dancers such as Carla Fracci, as well as having founded the dance group Corerofonie. Of the Rachmaninov concerto, he says, “When one decides to study piano, one is faced with a small group of pieces from the piano repertoire that have always been known, such as Beethoven's ‘For Elisa’ or Chopin's ”La Polonaise.” For piano concertos with orchestra, there is definitely Rachmaninov's Second Concerto-a concerto that everyone likes. The composer wrote it at a cathartic moment for himself as well, as he wanted to come out of a complicated period, in which he is measured by messages of great passion. With Maestro Bonato we started rehearsing and it's like having had a Lamborghini to enjoy making music together.”
Closing the concert is the Suite from Swan Lake, Suite Op. 20a and the Italian Capriccio Op. 45 by Pëtr Il’ič Čajkovskij. Despite being among the best-loved ballets of all time today, Swan Lake did not become known when it debuted in 1877, but years later (in 1882) thanks to a Concert Suite (devised by the composer himself) and divided into six numbers that summarize the highlights of the story: Odette's appearance, accompanied by the very famous and melancholy theme sung by the oboe, the dancing party to the rhythm of the waltz, the characteristic dance of the little swans, the Scene of Odette and Siegfried at the lake, the Danse hongroise, and the final scene describing Odette's despair at the betrayal she has suffered. The Italian Capriccio Op. 45, composed between 1879 and 1880, was inspired by Pëtr Il’ič Čajkovskij's sojourn in Italy, who sought to set to music the warmth, sunshine and traditions of the Italians, giving rise to a score with dazzling colors and Italic sounds: from the opening fanfare, to the Tuscan folk song sung by the oboes, from the Romanesque stornello full of momentum, to the enthralling tarantella placed at the close.