Mozart The Magic Flute, overture, Mozart Concert n. 23 K 488, Strauss Domestic Symphony

The American conductor Robert Treviño, who directs the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, lead us through these extraordinary evenings of musical masterpieces at the Auditorium Parco della Musica.The program includes the Overture from The Magic Flute, the Concert n. 23 K 488 - with which the Spanish pianist Javier Perianes makes his debut - by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the Domestic Symphony by Richard Strauss.

In the Overture of the famous opera The Magic Flute (1791), which probably takes up the main theme of the Sonata in B flat major Op. 24 n. 2 by Muzio Clementi, Mozart changes the traditional rules, because the overture (or symphony, in Italian opera) served to signal the beginning of the opera; therefore the initial slow tempo served as a real preamble to give those present the necessary time to take their seats, while the most important part was the second one, in which the composer expressed his best. In the case of The Magic Flute, however, the element of the overture that has the most relevance to the plot is the initial Adagio, in which many elements of what will happen later are foretold.

The Concert for piano and orchestra n. 23 in A major K 488, however, was composed by Mozart for a public evening of the Viennese Academies in 1786. This concert is, together with K 466, among the most performed and of greatest importance by the Viennese composer; the intimate dimension of this page, both in terms of the writing and the orchestral composition, confirm its belonging to the compositions that Mozart reserved for himself or for a small circle of connoisseurs.

The Domestic Symphony op. 53 finally, dedicated to his wife and son by the composer, is a symphonic poem by Richard Strauss, composed between 1902 and 1903. It was performed for the first time in 1904 in New York, with the orchestra conducted by Strauss himself. The Symphony represents a musical reflection on the security of domestic life as experienced by the composer himself: the score is conceived in a single movement, divided into the four typical sections of the symphony: introduction, joke, and fugal finale.

Photo credits: the Auditorium Parco della Musica official site