April Premieres
Saturdays in April
This month, Stingray Classica premieres five exciting broadcasts on Saturday evenings at 21:00. Firstly, on April 5, English-French pianist David Levy performs Dmitri Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87. Composed in 1950 and 1951, the work is a set of twenty-four pieces for piano, one in each of the major and minor keys of the chromatic scale. These pieces are filled with references to J. S. Bach’s famous The Well-Tempered Clavier. On April 12, oboist Luca Vignali, clarinetist Angelo De Angelis, horn player Carmine Pinto, bassoonist Eliseo Smordoni, and pianist Linda Di Carlo present Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Quintet for piano and wind instruments in E-flat major, K. 452. Afterward, the same ensemble performs Ludwig van Beethoven’s Quintet for piano and winds in E-flat major, Op. 16. The piece is often said to have been modelled on Mozart’s Quintet. Both quintets share the same key, feature the same three-movement structure, and are scored for the same unusual instrument combination. One week later, Italian cellist Silvia Chiesa and Italian pianist Maurizio Baglini perform a wonderful concert consisting of works of Frédéric Chopin, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Franz Liszt, and Ferruccio Busoni. The special concludes on April 26 with an intimate concert recorded at the magnificent Basilica di San Pietro in the Italian city of Perugia. Italian cellist and conductor Enrico Bronzi leads the Orchestra da Camera di Perugia in a concert program with works of Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Camille Saint-Saëns. The orchestra is joined by mezzosoprano Marina Comparato and pianists Linda Di Carlo and Marco Scolastra.
Shostakovich - 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87
Saturday, April 5 | 21:00
English-French pianist David Levy performs Dmitri Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87. The work is a set of twenty-four pieces for piano, one in each of the major and minor keys of the chromatic scale. Each piece is in two parts: a prelude followed by a fugue. The composer was doubtlessly inspired by J. S. Bach’s famous The Well-Tempered Clavier (BWV 846-893), a collection of forty-eight preludes and fugues published in two books. A panel member at Leipzig’s Bach competition, Shostakovich was deeply inspired by Russian pianist Tatiana Nikolayeva’s performance of Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues. Shostakovich wrote these pieces between the autumn of 1950 and February 1951, dedicating them to Nikolayeva, who agreed to perform the Leningrad premiere in December 1952. David Levy’s performance was recorded at the Budapest Music Center, Hungary, in September 2023.
Mozart - Quintet for piano and winds, K. 452
Saturday, April 12 | 21:00
Luca Vignali (oboe), Angelo De Angelis (clarinet), Carmine Pinto (horn), Eliseo Smordoni (bassoon), and Linda Di Carlo (piano) perform Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Quintet for piano and winds in E-flat major, K. 452. The work premiered at the Viennese Burgtheater on April 1, 1784, with the composer himself at the piano. Shortly after the performance, Mozart wrote to his father Leopold, “I consider it the best work I have ever written…”. Striking is the Quintet’s unusual instrumentation, which presented the composer with a challenge “as single winds, as opposed to pairs, pose problems of blend”. Therefore, Mozart explored numerous different permutations of instruments to produce various sonorities, and used short phrases and motifs for variety. This performance was recorded at Perugia’s Auditorium Santa Cecilia, Italy, on June 23, 2022.
Beethoven - Quintet for piano and winds, Op. 16
Saturday, April 12 | 21:25
Luca Vignali (oboe), Angelo De Angelis (clarinet), Carmine Pinto (horn), Eliseo Smordoni (bassoon), and Linda Di Carlo (piano) perform Ludwig van Beethoven’s Quintet for piano and winds in E-flat major, Op. 16. The piece, completed in 1796, is assumed to have been modelled on Mozart’s Quintet for piano and winds, K. 452. Both quintets are scored for the same unusual instrument combination, are in the same key, and feature the same three-movement structure. A marked difference is that Beethoven, as a piano virtuoso, wrote the piano parts to highlight the strengths of his playing. Besides, the composer regularly places this instrument in the center of attention. Beethoven published the work in 1801 in two versions: as a quintet for piano and winds, and as a quartet for piano and strings (also designated Op. 16). This performance was recorded at Perugia’s Auditorium Santa Cecilia, Italy, on June 23, 2022.
Works for cello and piano: Busoni, Liszt a.o.
Saturday, April 19 | 21:00
Italian cellist Silvia Chiesa and Italian pianist Maurizio Baglini perform a wonderful recital of works by Ferruccio Busoni, Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, and Sergei Rachmaninoff. On the program are Busoni’s Kultaselle – 10 variations on a Finnish folksong; Liszt’s Two Elegies for cello and piano; Chopin’s Introduction and Polonaise brillante in C major, Op. 3; and Rachmaninoff’s Sonata in G minor for cello and piano, Op. 19. As an encore, the duo plays Leonard Bernstein’s iconic composition ‘Tonight’ from the musical West Side Story. This performance was recorded at Sala Verdi of the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, Italy, on November 4, 2024.
Works by Haydn, Mozart and Saint-Saëns
Saturday, April 26 | 21:00
Italian cellist and conductor Enrico Bronzi leads the Orchestra da Camera di Perugia in this intimate concert at the magnificent Basilica di San Pietro in the Italian city of Perugia, recorded on September 27, 2021. Opening the program is a cello performance by Bronzi with the Orchestra da Camera di Peruglia: the Andante cantabile from Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 13 in D major, Hob. I:13. Then, Italian pianists Linda Di Carlo and Marco Scolastra join the orchestra for a performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Concerto for two pianos and orchestra in E-flat major, K. 365. Next up is Mozart’s concert aria "Ch'io mi scordi di te? … Non temer, amato bene", K. 505, sung by Italian mezzosoprano Marina Comparato. Accompanied by Linda Di Carlo on piano, she closes the concert with the aria “Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix” from Camille Saint-Saëns’s opera Samson and Delilah.