ConcertPulse
International Mendelssohn Festival 2024
Elbphilharmonie, Kleiner Saal (Hamburg)
Mikhail Glinka’s »Divertimento brillante« dates from a time when Glinka was living in Italy and saw the world premiere of Bellini’s bel canto opera »La Sonnambula« at La Scala in Milan. The melodic material comes from this opera, Glinka’s Divertimento consists of just one long movement with a brilliant finale, from which the work undoubtedly takes its name. The first half of the concert focuses on Finland’s musical heritage, including »Don Juanquijoten Virtuoosinen Pöytämusiikki« (The Virtuoso Table Music of Don Quixote) by Aulis Sallinen, which was written to celebrate the 70th birthday of cellist Arto Noras and premiered by Noras in Helsinki in 2012. Noras himself also performs this work here in Hamburg. In Janáček’s »Moravian Folk Poetry in Songs«, the stage belongs entirely to the strings of the Czech Talich Quartet, while Dohnányi’s Sextet, Op. 73 forms the finale, a work composed entirely in the spirit of late Romanticism, yet also infected by the zeitgeist: with a kind of ragtime for clarinet and piano in the finale.