Berlioz / Ravel / Turina / Respighi

The Swiss guest Kaspar Zehnder, one of the outstanding personalities of contemporary European conducting art, appears quite often at the conductor's console of our orchestra. The programme of the concert, comprising exclusively works of Romantic symphonism, will be introduced by the well-known overture by Hector Berlioz, characterised by its intense orchestral virtuosity, which literally sweeps the listener away at the end of the piece. Maurice Ravel wrote his Concerto for piano (left hand) and orchestra in D major in 1929/1930 for the Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein (brother of the famous philosopher), who suffered a severe injury to his right hand during the fighting in the First World War and had to undergo amputation. The Spanish musical idiom is represented by a concertante piece by the Seville-born Joaquín Turina, which draws on elements of Andalusian folkloric colour. The monumental Roman Festivities (Feste Romane) of 1928 is the final movement of the famous symphonic triptych by the great 20th-century Italian composer Ottorino Respighi, evoking the atmosphere of ancient Rome and the folk festivals of the time.