The sun of the south for the new year

"This is finally music again," said Franz Liszt enthusiastically when he heard Tchaikovsky's "Rococo Variations" for the first time in Wiesbaden. The enthusiasm for this "secret" cello concerto continues unabated to this day, both among audiences and renowned cellists. - The same applies to the popular "Capriccio espagnol": a catchy tune, so to speak, and one is constantly amazed at how the Russian Rimsky-Korsakov managed to compose in such an authentically "Spanish" style. Simply brilliant. - Italy is undoubtedly the land of opera; great orchestral works, even symphonies, are rare here. But no rule is without exception: Respighi's so-called "Roman Trilogy", three large-scale orchestral evocations of Rome, are among the pinnacle works of orchestral virtuosity, and they owe their highly subtle, extremely artistic interpretation to the fact that the Italian Ottorino Respighi studied for several months with the great Rimsky-Korsakov in St. Petersburg in 1901, where he learned all about the art of colorful orchestration.

How different national musical styles - Spanish, Italian and Russian - can influence each other in a highly stimulating way is exemplified by the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra's popular New Year's Concert.

Lucerne Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Daniele Rustioni
Violoncello: Anastasia Kobekina

Composers & Works
Alfredo Catalani (1854 - 1893)
"Contemplazione"

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893)
Variations on a Rococo Theme for violoncello and orchestra op. 33

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844 - 1908)
Capriccio espagnol op. 34

Ottorino Respighi (1879 - 1936)
"Pini di Roma"

Please note: The program and the artists performing are subject to change. The current program can be found on the website.


Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.