The first part of today’s concert features Cello Concerto, a composition from 1982, one of the best-known works of Friedrich Gulda Austrian piano virtuoso and composer. Known for brilliantly defying convention, in this work, Gulda managed to reconcile the contrast between the noble and elegant cello voice and the often trivial military music. The solo will be played by the young Austrian cellist Lida Limmer.
The second part of the concert will start by the overture to a lesser-known operetta by Johann Strauss Jr. The main motif of the stage work Waldmeister (Woodruff) is a waltz theme that incorporates the inverted arpeggio of the first three notes of the famous Blue Danube Waltz. And although contemporary critics scoffed at this late work, Brahms expressed his admiration: Strauss’s magnificent orchestration reminded him of Mozart.
Few pieces in the classical orchestral repertoire are as mysterious as Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony No. 7, in its latest numbering. On the one hand, it used to be commonly referred to as the Eighth Symphony, although it was written earlier than the “Great” Symphony in C major, traditionally numbered Seventh and now numbered Eighth. But the adjective ‘unfinished’ is also somewhat problematic, since many have argued over the last century and a half that Schubert never really intended to add further movements to the composition, having realised that he had said all he wanted to say in these two movements. What is certain, however, is that the composer had begun a third movement, the Scherzo of which he had sketched out in its entirety, and even the first bars of the Trio section have been preserved. However it happened, the existence of the work was soon forgotten, and the manuscript containing the two completed movements was only discovered in 1865 by Johann von Herbeck, a former friend of the composer.
The evening will be closed by our conductor Guido Mancusi conducting his own work, “Stil & Eleganz”, or Style and Elegance Waltz.
