Venice, La Fenice Theatre, Symphonic Season 2023-2024
La Fenice Theater Orchestra
Director Markus Stenz
Violin Vikram Francesco Sedona
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: Concerto in E minor for violin and orchestra op. 64; Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 in E major wab 107
Venice, June 28, 2024
The 2023-2024 Symphony Season of the Fenice continues, which reserves a prominent place for Bruckner, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of his birth: after the Fourth and the Eighth, the second part of the concert was performed, directed by Markus Stenz, the Seventh Symphony, the jewel in the crown of a difficult author, who struggled to establish himself, at least in Italy. The violinist was the undisputed star of the first part of the evening Vikram Francesco Sedona – winner of the 32nd City of Vittorio Veneto Competition – with the Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, extraordinary masterpiece by the Hamburg composer, written between 1838 and 1844 in collaboration with the violinist Ferdinand David, also born in the Hanseatic city. The score was completed in September 1844, but the first performance took place only on 13 May 1845 – due to various second thoughts about the position of the cadence in the initial movement, placed, exceptionally, after the development – with David as soloist and the Gewandhaus orchestra led by Niels Gade. The young concert performer has definitely impressed (in the positive sense of the term) for his always impeccable intonation and for the quality of the sound – round, soft, enveloping, yet extraordinarily clear and pearly -, as well as for the technical preparation and interpretative maturity, demonstrated addressing one of the cornerstones of the romantic concert, which combines constructive wisdom and formal elegance.
In the first movement, I attach very passionate – which goes beyond the traditional form, making the solo violin immediately emerge – Sedona intoned with great enthusiasm the exposition of the very marked initial theme, which stood out, with anapestic rhythm, on the thin plot of the low strings, marked by the pulsation of the tympanum, e then passed, intensifying its emotional force, to the whole orchestra, which presented, in the continuation, a theme derived from the first, immediately taken up again with variations by the soloist. A second theme, in the style of a chorale, was introduced with interpretative finesse by the wind instruments, while the dialogue with the soloist continued effectively in the development up to the articulated cadence (entirely written), in which the concertante instrument displayed great virtuosity. The reprise, with the return of the chorale theme, resulted in the brilliant Codaconcluded by a held note from the first bassoon, connecting this movement to the‘Andante in C major. The latter – in the tripartite form of Lied – It opened with a poignant theme, which offered the soloist the opportunity to perform with great authority in bows, legates and held notes. The horns and orchestra then introduced the more dramatic central section, which was followed by a restatement of the initial theme, which concluded the movement pianissimo.
Preceded by a connecting recitative, the virtuosic Allegro very lively – and Rondo-Sonatawhere the initial theme of the concerto returns several times with slight variations – once again allowed the soloist to shine in very fast double-quaver figures and dizzying scales, up toat a cadence, announced by the ascending trills of the violin, punctuated by the wind instruments, with which the movement closed with impetus and brilliance. Thunderous applause and ovations for the violinist from Preganziol. Two unscheduled ones: “Ménétrier” from Childhood impressions by George Enescu and – after the playful nod to “Talk to me about Mariù” – “Meditation” by Thaïs by Massenet (performing the violin part only).
The protagonist of the second part of the evening was – as mentioned – Anton Bruckner, represented by his seventh symphonic score – a further homage to Wagner, already dedicatee of the Third Symphony -, which brought him his first real international success. This symphony is, among other things, one of the symbols of The end of Austriaespecially afterwards that Visconti chose some extracts as the soundtrack for Sense (1954). The great director was able to capture, in Bruckner’s music, a sensuality that was at times fiery and exhausting, an emotional instability between irrepressible enthusiasm and dark premonitions of the end; which is expressed musically in the contrast – typical of the composer from Ansfelden – between sound panels: some grandiose and heroic, others subduedly crepuscular.
As for Stenz’s interpretation, it seemed to us that the German director – thanks also to a choice of tempos that were never too dilated – did not indulge too much in morbid exhaustion, favoring a virilely romantic reading, free from any sentimentality. Valuable the performance of the orchestra, since the solenne start of the first movement, Allegro Moderato, with an intense color theme pathoswhich unfolded along a broad ascending line, standing out on the tremolo of the strings, before the appearance of two more themes – one lyrical, exposed by the winds, the other more nervous and incisive, closed by a fanfare –, after which contrapuntal elaborations of the thematic material, performed with expressive rigor, led to the powerful conclusion of the movement. Suggestive, but not particularly exhausting, in Stenz’s vision, the famous, immense Adagio, in which two themes alternated – the first melancholy, a severe chorale of violas and tubas, continued by the strings; the second is tenuously lyrical -, whose development, through a long crescendo characterized by frequent contrapuntal elaborations, culminated in a powerful cymbal stroke with triangle, followed by the Coda – added following the grim news of Wagner’s death as a final homage to the venerated Maestro – where, after the dark chorale of Wagnerian tubas – derived from the main theme –, the music became thinner until it died away. Particularly lively the third movement, Scherzo, with the ringing theme of the trumpets on a bold rhythmic ostinato, interspersed with the pastoral aura of the Trio. Absolute rigor, in the plurality of accents, was captured in the variegation fourth movement, Finale, which he saw alternating three themes – the first derived from the main one of the first movement, the second, derived from theAdagiodeclined in chorale form, the third, a variant of the first, in the form of a brass fanfare in the form of a recitative – con the cadential clause of the first recurring theme as a refrain of Rondo. Absolutely undisputed success.
