HAYDN: La fedeltà premiata overture
BEETHOVEN: Ah, perfido! - concert aria, op. 65
SCHUMANN: Overture, Scherzo and Finale, op. 52
WAGNER: Tristan und Isolde – Prelude and Isolde's love death
R. STRAUSS: Death and Transfiguration
Karita Mattila – soprano
Hungarian National Philharmonic
Conductor: Zsolt Hamar
Life and Death
The works of this 'thematic' concert deal with loyalty and infidelity, life and death, with Haydn's overture (1800) set in ancient times alongside its near-contemporary, a concert aria from Beethoven (1808). The title of the latter piece refers to the first vocal solo recital, where a jilted woman expresses her pain: "Ah, perfido..." (Ah! Faithless one, perjured, barbarous betrayer, do you leave?) Wagner's Tristan Prelude (1859) is a physiologically and psychologically precise depiction of the ecstatic rapture of love, while Isolde's music depicts the love death of the heroine. Richard Strauss's "Death and Transfiguration", written in 1889, was inspired by his fortunate recovery from serious illness, during which the composer had experienced"...the thought that I am depicting the death of a man who has fought and struggled with the loftiest objectives – in my work, I outlined an artist with a clear soul." The soloist for the concert is the Finnish opera singer and bonafide star of the international opera scene, Karita Mattila (b. 1960), who was chosen as one of the most important sopranos of our time by the BBC Music Magazine in 2007.
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