Thursday, May 1, 2025
Teatro Petruzzelli, Bari, Italy
This long-established Berliner Philharmoniker Europe-travelling concert reached Italian soil and included music by native composers from (originally) French-language operas. In this snazzy-looking/ornate venue (opened 1903), the morning started with William Tell, solo cellos intermingled ravishingly, Riccardo Muti as much spectator as conductor, if facially revealing, then a tempest in which trombones cut through gleefully, followed by an Alpine melody poetically shaped by cor anglais, beguilingly decorated by flute, and a final galop rhythmically exact right down to the smallest detail, exuberant ending. Mandatory to Parisian opera productions at the time, Verdi’s ballet sequence for The Sicilian Vespers is an inventive and varied piece of work tracing the seasons through numerous dancing vignettes and occasional romantic numbers, superbly performed with enjoyment (lovely woodwind solos) over thirty minutes, Muti a master of the style.
Following the interval, Brahms Two, its exposition spacious and savoured, and generously repeated, with the development of organic continuation if greater intensity before settling back to first base and greater glow, the coda slumbering with satisfaction. With a flowing yet flexible Adagio probing the depths of human feeling, then a courtly Allegretto, and a trenchant Finale loaded with dynamic and phrasal subtleties that blazed the Symphony to a jubilant conclusion and a roaring reception, this was very special.