Saint-Saëns: Violin Concerto / Minasi / Obiso

Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

conductor Riccardo Minasi
violin Andrea Obiso

Salut à la France!
Rameau Ouvertures: Zaïs, Les Fêtes de Polymnie, Naïs                                           
Saint-Saëns Violin Concerto No. 3                                                                     
Ravel Le tombeau de Couperin                   
Bizet Carmen suite

The “Salut à la France!” concert will showcase two Italian artists, as Riccardo Minasi, Chief Conductor of Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, and Andrea Obiso, born in 1994 and making his solo debut in the symphonic season, will both be ascending to the podium.

The programme begins with three Overtures by Rameau: from the opera Zaïs (1748), from Naïs, and from the opéra-ballet Les fêtes de Polymnie (1745) (1749). These will be followed by Camille Saint-Saëns’s Violin Concerto No. 3, written for the Spanish virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate, who was renowned for the captivating interpretative magnetism and personality with which he enchanted audiences at that time. The resulting sound is pure, brilliant, and inspired; the written page abounds with technical solutions and contrivances that point clearly to a desire to fully exploit the instrument’s resources and to showcase the acrobatic skills of the soloist being put to the test.

The second part of the programme will offer Le Tombeau de Couperin, one of Ravel’s most refined pieces. Composed for piano in 1917, it was orchestrated in 1919 and, to quote Ravel himself, was conceived “not so much as a homage to Couperin as to the whole of eighteenth-century French music.” The evening ends with the Suite from Georges Bizet’s Carmen, one of the world’s most renowned, beloved, and performed operas.