Alexander Soddy – Fauré / Ravel

The concert at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, part of the Symphonic Music Season of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, conducted by Alexander Soddy, presents a program dedicated to French Impressionist music, showing us all its beauty.

The evening opens with Gabriel Fauré's (1845-1924) Pavane, an elegant yet melancholy work that transports us to the refinement of late 19th-century French music; the program continues with the peaceful atmospheres of the composer's Requiem, which conveys the hope of eternal light, enhanced by the celestial voices of Golda Schultz and Mikhail Timoshenko. This is followed by the dream of a fascinating and imaginary Orient with Maurice Ravel's (1875-1937) Shéhérazade. Finally, the evening ends with the intoxicating and dark vortex of La Valse, a waltz that dances on the brink of the abyss, symbolizing a world, like that of the Belle Époque, that was about to fall apart, overshadowed by the disasters of the First World War.

National Academy of Santa Cecilia - Symphonic Music Season - Auditorium Parco della Musica - Rome.

Orchestra and Chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
Conductor: Alexander Soddy
Soprano: Golda Schultz
Baritone: Mikhail Timoshenko
Chorus Master: Andrea Secchi

Fauré: Pavane
Fauré: Requiem
Ravel: Shéhérazade
Ravel: La Valse

Photo: the Auditorium Parco della Musica official site