|
Fourteen People and a Dog
Brits in Rome,
heard by GIUSEPPE PENNISI
During the same week, two of Rome's major symphonic and chamber music institutions — the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and the Accademia Filarmonica Romana — devoted their programs to British composers and artists. This is quite singular because although British conductors, singers and instrumentalists often visit Italy's capital city, performances of British composers' works are few and far between.
In short, Mark Elder conducted three concerts in the huge Sala Santa Cecilia (2,800 seats) between 22 and 25 March 2014 — I was in the audience on 24 March — where the most important part of the program was Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations Op 36; in the first part, we listened to the rarely performed Richard Strauss symphonic poem Macbeth and Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Op 43 (with outstanding twenty-two-year-old Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov). On 27 March, in the eighteenth century Teatro Argentina, Ian Bostridge presented a recital with Julius Drake at the piano, featuring Benjamin Britten's Winter Words Op 52, following Franz Schubert's Winterreise and Charles Ives' Memories...
Copyright © 16 April 2014
Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy
|
