Hugo Wolf
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
Hugo Wolf’s name usually brings to mind his great body of Lieder. But this great Austrian composer was skilled at far more than songs, as we discover this evening.
We are celebrating Wolf’s birthday (1860) by airing two instrumental works, one chamber and one orchestral. We open with the “Italian Serenade” in G, a work that has two incarnations—one for string quartet and one for full orchestra. It is the chamber version we hear, as performed by violinists Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg and Benny Kim, violist Masao Kawasaki, and cellist Mats Lidstrom.
Later, we enjoy what some call an opera without words, Wolf’s impassioned symphonic poem “Penthesilea,” which takes it inspiration from a drama about the love of the Queen of the Amazons for Achilles. The musical storytelling can be deduced by the titles of the movements: ‘Departure of the Amazons for Troy,’ ‘Penthesilea’s Dream of the Festival of Roses,’ and ‘Combats, passions, madness, annihilation.’ Bringing it all to life is the Orchestre de Paris under Daniel Barenboim.
We are celebrating Wolf’s birthday (1860) by airing two instrumental works, one chamber and one orchestral. We open with the “Italian Serenade” in G, a work that has two incarnations—one for string quartet and one for full orchestra. It is the chamber version we hear, as performed by violinists Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg and Benny Kim, violist Masao Kawasaki, and cellist Mats Lidstrom.
Later, we enjoy what some call an opera without words, Wolf’s impassioned symphonic poem “Penthesilea,” which takes it inspiration from a drama about the love of the Queen of the Amazons for Achilles. The musical storytelling can be deduced by the titles of the movements: ‘Departure of the Amazons for Troy,’ ‘Penthesilea’s Dream of the Festival of Roses,’ and ‘Combats, passions, madness, annihilation.’ Bringing it all to life is the Orchestre de Paris under Daniel Barenboim.
