Rossini. Mozart. Shostakovich

With the opera Guglielmo Tell Rossini’s life as a composer came to a close. Guglielmo Tell enjoyed tremendous success and after its completion the composer lived a further forty years – writing next to nothing. Because of its epic proportions, today this opera is staged much more rarely than any other of Rossini’s masterpieces, although the overture continues to remain incredibly popular. The final gallop of the overture became a true hit, and it now has many humorous associations and is used in cartoons and advertising. However, the dazzling and untraditional first section of the overture still shines brightly, beginning with the solo cello, followed by the vivid orchestral picture of a storm.

Concerto No 20 in D Minor for Piano and Orchestra is one of the most popular of Mozart’s concerti thanks to its romantic and passionate character. The first section precedes the emotional pages of Don Giovanni, while the third is the finale of Symphony No 40.
Mozart completed the score on 10 February 1785, and already the next day the composer performed his latest work in the casino room of the Mehlgrub at the opening of a series of six subscription concert. Performing the keyboard at the same time as conducting was his favourite method of influencing the public. It was Mozart, in the 1780s, who created a revolution, ridding the piano of its role as accompanist (which in line with tradition had been performed in the orchestra by the harpsichord and other keyboard instruments) and transformed it into a real soloist.
Mozart intended his concerti for the broader public. In a letter to his father he wrote: “It is concerti that are somewhere between too hard and too easy, there is much dazzle in them, they are pleasant to the ear, but, of course, they do not disappear into emptiness; in certain places there is satisfaction to be had only by connoisseurs – apropos, non-connoisseurs should inexplicably be pleased with them.”

Anna Bulycheva

In early March 1969 Shostakovich completed one of his most perpetual works – the Fourteenth Symphony, executed in the form of a vocal cycle for bass, soprano and chamber orchestra. The texts of the first two parts are by Spanish poet Federico Garcнa Lorca (1898–1936), who died tragically during the Spanish Civil War. The third is based on a ballade by the German Romantic Klemens Brentano (1797–1846) in the French translation by Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918). Parts four to eight were written to words by Apollinaire, part nine to words by Wilhelm Küchelbeker (1797–1846) and the last two sections to words by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926).
The Fourteenth Symphony is dedicated to British composer Benjamin Britten (1913–1976), whose War Requiem Shostakovich considered a masterpiece of contemporary music. The Fourteenth Symphony is a unique negative of the Requiem: in structure it is closer to a mass for the dead, though in content it is not. The separate parts of the Fourteenth Symphony are distorted, “travesty” variations of parts of a requiem: where there should be a Lacrimosa in the Requiem, with Shostakovich (Madam, Look!) there is almost obscene hysterical laughter, instead of the Sanctus – a hymn to the Great Jehovah – the sultan is cursed, while the closing Libera me de morte aeterna motif is replaced by maxims on the absolute power of death.. Here the elegy O Delvig, Delvig! takes the place of the Benedictus – traditionally the brightest, most glorious part of a mass and dedicated to the Holy Spirit; not by chance alone is this section free of the spirit of negativism that pervades the rest of the symphony.

Levon Akopian