The Basque National Orchestra will perform the greatest compositions by Maurice Ravel – who hailed from the Basque country – and one of the greatest symphonists in the history of music – Gustav Mahler. The musicians will be led by Robert Trevino – conductor and artistic director of the orchestra.
The Bolero is Ravel’s most famous composition, in which he refers to his Basque origin, as it is a stylization of Spanish dance. The work was commissioned by the dancer Ida Rubinstein, and the premiere choreography was prepared by Vaslav Nijinsky. According to their comments, the plot of the ballet was to take place in a tavern. Ravel, however, had a different idea: he imagined that the Bolero should be danced in a factory to emphasize the mechanical nature of the music. According to an anecdote, during the premiere one of the listeners said that when writing such music, the composer must have lost his mind, which Ravel summed up with one word: “understood”. We have no evidence that this was indeed the case. Even if this happened, the reason was certainly not the level of complexity of the music – the Bolero is very simple. The rhythm of the accompaniment does not change at all, while the melody itself is simply played by various instruments and their different combinations – louder and louder, until a powerful climax involving the entire orchestra.
The Pavane pour une infante défunte is another famous work by Ravel. This is a stylization of the Spanish dance whose name derives from the steps imitating the behavior of peacocks. This melancholic and thoughtful piece gained great popularity. Ravel strongly protested when it was played too slowly, and after one such performance, he is said to have declared: “this is a Pavana for a Dead Infanta, not a Dead Pavana for an Infanta.”
After the intermission, we will hear the monumental, five-movement Fifth Symphony by Gustav Mahler. Its movements have been arranged in three parts. The first two, i.e. the funeral march and the fast part, are music full of darkness, fury and desperation. The fast movement is a majestic Scherzo, in which echoes of Austrian folk dances are heard, as well as sharp rhythms reminiscent of the stylization of a dance of death. The last two movements bring respite. The lyrical Adagietto for harp and strings has become one of Mahler's best-known and often performed works. According to the composer’s friend, the Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg, the composer wrote a love poem for his wife, Alma, which could be set to the melody of the Adagietto. The happy and bright finale is based on Mahler’s witty song with lyrics from the collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Its title is Lob des hohen Verstandes (In Praise of a Great Mind). The content is the dispute between a nightingale and a cuckoo. The birds, unable to determine which of them is the better singer, go to the judge proposed by the cuckoo – a donkey, chosen because of its large ears, which, according to the bird’s assurances, prove excellent musical taste. As expected by the cuckoo, the donkey, braying happily, praises the cuckoo’s singing, while he interrupts the nightingale, unable to understand its trill.
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