Samedi 26 juillet - 20h - Opéra Berlioz / Le Corum
Orchestre National de Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon
Conductor Lawrence Foster

Aldo Ciccolini piano
Stanislav Vitar ténor : Mozart
Konstantin Gorny basse : Salieri
Michael Nguyen piano

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Concerto pour piano et orchestre
n°23 en la Majeur KV 488

Concerto pour piano et orchestre
n°20 en ré mineur KV 466

Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov
Mozart et Salieri
Scène dramatique pour ténor, basse et orchestre
opus 48
Livret de Alexandre Pouchkine

With the support of Veolia

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Piano Concerto No. 23 in a major, KV 488: pure Mozart! Here he assembles all the ingredients of his genius and, at the same time, reveals, as usual, his most intimate aspirations. The Concerto’s three movements are filled with a muted, profound bitterness, sometimes tinged with a joy that nonetheless remains serene, never becoming exuberant, even in the opening Allegro or concluding Allegro assai, fast or vigorous. Once again, Mozart takes pleasure in ambiguity as if to express the contradictions of life, in which darkness and light, anguish and hope, always cohabit. The central Adagio, with a supplely rocking rhythm and a disappearing melody, gradually borders on pathos.
Mozart remains faithful to very close playing between soloist and orchestra, this tension reminding us that there is never real serenity in him but rather resignation. The score dates from the spring of 1786, a period when an overworked Mozart was, in addition, confronting all sorts of trials: the internecine dissensions that were perturbing the Masonic lodges and to which Joseph II would have to put an end with new regulations, and the cabal that spoiled the final preparations for The Marriage of Figaro.
Piano Concerto No. 20 in E minor, KV 466: Mozart was at the peak of his career as a piano virtuoso and composer of keyboard works when he wrote this concerto in February 1785. His father found this new score ‘magnificent’, but its tone is particularly tragic. Should we see in it the expression of a tragedy, linked to the human condition, going beyond Mozart’s story? The fact remains that the pathetic aspect is even more aggressive and constant here than in his other concertos. Soloist and orchestra fight over the thematic material, the competition obliging the piano to impose itself through its virtuosity. The atmosphere remains feverish, uneasy and inflamed; however, the light triumphs in the concluding Allegro assai final, whereas in the Romance serving as a slow movement, despair reaches its apogee.

Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov
Mozart and Salieri: While The Marriage of Figaro was getting ready to face the footlights in April 1786, a cabal fomented by Salieri spoilt both the composition of the 23rd Concerto and preparations for the opera. He ‘moved heaven and earth’ and even succeeded in convincing the singers to join forces against Mozart. The quarrel ended only with the Emperor’s order to put the opera into rehearsal. Such was the reality, one of the reasons that later lent credibility to the legend of his poisoning by Salieri that circulated in Vienna after Mozart’s death.
With his play in two scenes, Pushkin revived the scandalous accusation in 1830 and, in 1897, Rimsky-Korsakov turned it into an opera, taking up Pushkin’s text in extenso. It relates Mozart’s final hours after being poisoned by Salieri. The latter, desperate owing to the injustice whereby Mozart was a genius and himself an ‘envious wretch’, invites his rival to dinner. Their conversation reinforces Salieri’s idea that the dangerous Mozart must be eliminated, and he puts poison in his glass.
Rimsky-Korsakov elected to favour the voice, following the inflections of the Russian language, which Pushkin had made particularly musical and which he proclaimed in order to accentuate the nationalist character of his music. This type of declamation, both poetic and realistic, also provided him with a pretext for pushing even further the study of recitative, thereby asserting his belonging to the Five. A true musical conversation, this opera is thus based on the declamation of monologues and dialogues. The orchestral accompaniment, with a very dense musical fabric supported by choral quotations from the Mozart Requiem and the pastiche of a Mozart sonata, imbues the drama with considerable profundity.

Catherine Michaud

Broadcast France Musique le 10/09/08 - 8pm

Master-classes - Aldo Ciccolini

from Wednesday the 16th
to Saturday the 19th

Médiathèque Emile Zola
10am–1pm and 3-6pm

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