Orchestra Concert
FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY Concert Overture in B Minor, Op. 26 – “The Hebrides”
RICHARD WAGNER The Dutchman’s monologue, “Die Frist ist um”, from Der fliegende Holländer (original version, 1841)
GIUSEPPE VERDI Prelude from Macbeth
GIUSEPPE VERDI Scene and cavatina of Lady Macbeth, “Nel dì della vittoria io le incontrai” – “Vieni! t’affretta!”, from Macbeth
GIUSEPPE VERDI Aria of Macbeth, “Pietà, rispetto, amore”, from Macbeth
GIUSEPPE VERDI Aria of Lady Macbeth, “La luce langue”, from Macbeth
FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56 – “Scottish”
End of concert approx. 05:00 pm.
Print programme (PDF)
The rugged forces of nature break out in Wagner’s Flying Dutchman with massive waves of sound. It was the experience of a stormy sea crossing from Riga to London which inspired Richard Wagner to realise his plans of a musical project based on the maritime legend. As he described it: “The legend of The Flying Dutchman … took on for me a distinct and peculiar colour, which only the seafaring adventures I had experienced could have given me”. His original version of 1841, based on Heinrich Heine’s retelling of the story, set the plot in Scotland. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s Hebrides-Overture and Third Symphony bring exactly the same potent tone-painting to its portrayal of Scottish storms, experienced in person by the composer when his European grand tour took him to the north in 1829. Discovering there a barren, windswept landscape, he journeyed out to the famous Fingal’s Cave and made his first sketches for the “Scottish” Symphony. “Everything here is so serious-looking and imposing, half enveloped in haze or smoke or fog,” Mendelssohn wrote from Edinburgh in 1829. However, it was not until 1841 that he would set the moods and impressions of his Scotland trip to a symphony, and then solely from memory. Verdi’s Macbeth in turn takes us to an 11th century Scotland where a villainous couple prowl around desolate moors.