By Walter Ego
An odd meeting between two great Italian artists happened on Wednesday 5th September 2007 at the Royal Albert Hall: a 300 years old chap shared the stage with the Italian conductor Riccardo Chailly!
No mummies from the British Museum though: ‘just’ one of the incredible creations by one of the best violin maker ever lived: Antonio Stradivari. The violin is the ‘Sasserno Stradivarius’ of 1717, loaned by the Nippon Music Foundation and played by Vivian Hagner, a talentuous violinist at her debut with the Proms.
Prom 69 started off with the Overture ‘Coriolan’, Op. 62 by Ludwig van Beethoven, well describing the different moods and feelings of Gaius Marcius Coriolanus, according to Plutarch a Roman general who lived in the 5th century BC. Coriolanus was charged with false allegations and banished from Rome despite defeating an enemy tribe, the Volscians. Full with revenge he prepared to attack the city with the troops of the past enemies but at the view of the matrons sent to persuade him to withdraw the attack, and mainly the sight of his wife and mother, he broke down and killed himself, though in Plutarch the story has a different end. But this way Beethoven can musically illustrate all the human raw emotions, which Chailly interpreted by strengthening the Romantic shadow.
Always by Beethoven was the second piece: Violin Concert in D major, Op. 61. Here Mr Sasserno Stradivarius, together with his master Vivian Hagner backed by Riccardo Chailly and his orchestra, gave the audience an example of how a soloist playing one of the most difficult violin concertos can give birth to a mix of lyricism and technique of the topmost level.
Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 by Brahms concluded the evening. The Fourth Symphony is to be considered the highest peak of Brahms’s life for music in search of the way between tradition and innovation, between Baroque and Romanticism, and Chailly, with his conduction, showed these two essences of the author.
Sorry, in reality the night had a post scriptum, an encore: the colourful, fast-paced and joyful Academic Festival Overture by Brahms. An envoi to a clapping audience which was, in fact, more than willing to dream a few more minutes.
Copyright 2007 GIORGIOSTUDIO Ltd – All rights reserved
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