Pärt / Bosso / Bartók
Teatro Filarmonico in Verona hosts a special evening of musical invention and experimentation. Three works by three highly respected composers who have made history with their creativity and audacity to break every old norm in the book form the core of the experience. In concert by a solo violin and orchestra, Arvo Pärt, Ezio Bosso and Béla Bartók are bound to charm, hypnotise and entertain you with their endless talent and compositional ability.
The programme starts with Fratres by Arvo Pärt, a most curious work in three parts originally premiered in 1977. The Estonian composer’s signature ‘tintinnabuli’ style of writing is in full force here: The piece has no fixed instrumentation, just different voices, and its tonal centre is an endless mixture of D harmonic minor, A major, and A minor. As the voices move and paint various harmonic textures, unexpected dissonances and musical cliffhangers will take you on a very special journey.
Next comes Violin Concerto No 1 ‘EsoConcerto’ by Ezio Bosso, one of the composer’s landmark creations. The brilliant Italian pianist, double bass player, conductor and composer did not produce many works for violin and orchestra, but his very first attempt in the genre is widely considered a masterpiece of neoclassical music. With beautiful tributes and callbacks to signature works by Antonio Vivaldi, Felix Mendelssohn and Johann Sebastian Bach, Bosso’s first-ever violin concerto stands on a firm basis of beloved classics, upon which it builds an exciting and inventive structure that simply needs to be heard.
Béla Bartók’s Divertimento for Strings, Sz 113 BB 118 rounds off the programme. A splendid three-part work from 1939, it skirts modernist and neoclassical territory while remaining unique and characteristic of its author’s style. The musical landscapes are defined by moments of full orchestral onslaught, which regularly contrast with solo passages in sharp counterpoint to the rest of the ensemble. This push-pull dynamic, combined with Bartók’s knack for playing with different modalities, imbues the Divertimento with a sense of playfulness and wonder that is typical of the genre. The concert ‘Pärt / Bosso / Bartók’ ends on a high, exciting note, leaving audiences at Teatro Filarmonico hungry for more.