Birthday Bravi!
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
This date is the birthday of three opera singers, so we’ll hear from each one of them this evening: tenor Enrico Caruso (1921); soprano Mirella Freni (1935); and baritone Mattia Battistini (1928).
When Beethoven’s pupil, Carl Czerny, remarked that the Eighth Symphony was not as popular as the Seventh, Ludwig replied, "That's because it's so much better." It is a cheerful and witty work, the second movement honoring his friend Maezel, who perfected and then patented the metronome, a device Beethoven famously found very useful. Toward the movement’s end, you can hear the sly musical suggestion that the mechanical marvel has broken down. David Zinman leads the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra with his customary zest.
Hour two is birthday cake time. As promised, we hear three familiar operatic voices—bringing us arias by three different composers. Enrico Caruso reminds us why he was the best of all opera clowns with ‘Vesti la giubba’ from Leoncavallo’s “I pagliacci’; Mirella Freni charms us with ‘Un bel di’ from Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly”; and Mattia Battistini wows us with ‘Di provenza il mar’ from Verdi’s “La Traviata.” Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields take delight in playing Mozart’s Serenade in G, K. 525, familiarly known as “Eine kleine Nachtmusik.” Clarinetist David Shifrin and pianist Carol Rosenberger team up for Brahms’s Clarinet Sonata No. 1.
Our third hour’s featured work is the Sibelius Violin Concerto, with none other than Gidon Kremer as soloist; Riccardo Muti heads the Philharmonia Orchestra.
When Beethoven’s pupil, Carl Czerny, remarked that the Eighth Symphony was not as popular as the Seventh, Ludwig replied, "That's because it's so much better." It is a cheerful and witty work, the second movement honoring his friend Maezel, who perfected and then patented the metronome, a device Beethoven famously found very useful. Toward the movement’s end, you can hear the sly musical suggestion that the mechanical marvel has broken down. David Zinman leads the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra with his customary zest.
Hour two is birthday cake time. As promised, we hear three familiar operatic voices—bringing us arias by three different composers. Enrico Caruso reminds us why he was the best of all opera clowns with ‘Vesti la giubba’ from Leoncavallo’s “I pagliacci’; Mirella Freni charms us with ‘Un bel di’ from Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly”; and Mattia Battistini wows us with ‘Di provenza il mar’ from Verdi’s “La Traviata.” Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields take delight in playing Mozart’s Serenade in G, K. 525, familiarly known as “Eine kleine Nachtmusik.” Clarinetist David Shifrin and pianist Carol Rosenberger team up for Brahms’s Clarinet Sonata No. 1.
Our third hour’s featured work is the Sibelius Violin Concerto, with none other than Gidon Kremer as soloist; Riccardo Muti heads the Philharmonia Orchestra.
