LEIPZIG, GERMANY – GEWANDHAUSORCHESTER LEIPZIG – STRAVINSKY, TCHAIKOVSKY

Stefanie Irányi, soprano
Martin Mitterrutzner, tenor
Jongmin Park, bass
Gewandhaus Orchestra
Semyon Bychkov conductor

PROGRAMME
Stravinsky: Pulcinella – ballet in one act with three solo voices
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 3 in D major op. 29 (“Polish”)

VENUE NOTE:
DELIGHTED MURMURS …
… The first notes are received in the Gewandhaus Hall: Stravinsky’s Pulcinella music is one of the most recognizable music that everyone knows – even without being aware of it. You just have to like them, the delightfully and delightfully beautiful pieces in media-effective brevity and amusement. Few people know that they are part of a 45-minute vocal-instrumental ballet one-act play about the Commedia dell’arte characters Pulcinella, his lover Pimpinella and friends of the two – including the unraveling and unraveling of the couples, manslaughter and resurrection. There are still many gems to discover among the 20 witty miniatures. The stage design and costumes were contributed to the Paris premiere with the Ballets Russes in 1920 by none other than Pablo Picasso. At the request of the commissioning impresario Diaghilev and the premiere conductor Ansermet, Stravinsky resorted to music that was attributed to Pergolesi at the time. At first
he did not like the neo-baroque task at all, but in the end Stravinsky felt right at home as an avant-garde wolf in historicizing sheep’s clothing, created trailer suites for the concert hall and had the beloved score revised in 1966.

IRRITATED AMAZEMENT …
… Tchaikovsky’s Third provokes to this day: it contradicts the expectations of a symphony as well as the cliché of his orchestral music, which is shaped by the much-played Symphonies Nos. 5 and 6. The third is Tchaikovsky’s only symphony in major – but contains plenty of minor within the astonishing key plan. It is the only one to comprise five movements – including three dance-related movement types. Her first movement has the character of a finale, and the Allegro con fuoco finale flies by so nimbly that it reaches its finish line as the shortest of Tchaikovsky’s symphony final movements and celebrates this with virtuoso fireworks. His Tempo di Polacca is as little Polish as the Alla tedesca waltz in second place is German. The occasionally circulated epithet “Polish” is rather based on a derogatory remark by the conductor Alfred Manns, who conducted the English premiere in 1899. In the Grand Concert of the otherwise so Tchaikovsky-happy Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Third has only been heard three times.