Merveilleux moment de musique attendu dans la ville natale du Père de MOZART ;
Augsbourg consacre en effet son festival annuel au Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Et c’est du très grand spectacle.
The principal character of this year’s Augsburg Mozart Festival (May 16th-20th, 2007) is Joseph de Bologne Chevalier de Saint-George, also known as « Black Mozart ».
This choice means that Augsburg, Germany’s city of Mozart, will reveal another exciting chapter on unique musical personalities from Mozart’s times – one year after the great jubilee – and is thereby making a name for itself by rediscovering extraordinary violin literature from the 18th century.
Coloured violin virtuoso, composer and conductor Saint-George influenced the music scene in Paris at a time when all great European composers met in the French metropolis and searched for stylistic inspiration. Two of them were Wolfgang Amadé Mozart and Joseph Haydn.
Augsburg, birthplace of Leopold Mozart and Germany’s city of Mozart, is the first city to dedicate a whole festival to Saint-George and present the violin virtuoso as the most important personality in French violin literature from the late 18th century.
Apart from the violin concertos, which captivate audiences with their wonderful use of cantabile and melodic imagination, the festival’s programme will include pieces of chamber music by Saint-George and fellow composers in the magnificent rococo halls of Germany’s city of Mozart.
As a matter of fact, Joseph Haydn’s and Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s „Pariser Sinfonien“ will also be featured in the festival programme – as well as the great works of French composers such as Gossec, Leduc and Pleyel.
The varied programme of the festival, which offers five days of events, includes large evening concerts as well as performances in the afternoon and at night.
There will be daily lunchtime concerts, featuring young talent, at the Maximilian Museum’s Viermetzhof and a musical service will be held at Heilig Kreuz, Mozart’s church.
International artists and ensembles are invited to go along with the special theme of this year’s Augsburg Mozart Festival and find new ways to work with the concerto repertoire.
The opening concert on May 16th, will be given by the Belgian authentic sound ensemble „Les Agrémens“, under the musical direction of Guy van Waas. After having played in France, Poland, England and Austria, the internationally renowned orchestra will give its first concert in Germany.
From Austria there will be the Wiener Akademie with Martin Haselböck and violinist Thomas Fheodoroff as guests of the German city of Mozart (18th May). Jos van Immerseel (pianoforte) and Midori Seiler (violin) from Belgium will perform a duo programme on May 17th in the magnificent ball room of the Schaezlerpalais.
The Swiss ensemble Quatuor ad Fontes will play at the same place on May 20th and entertain the audience with quartets by André-Modeste Grétry as well as François-Joseph Gossec, thus presenting the first French compositions of this genre. The young, up-and-coming Tecchler Trio from Zurich will celebrate this year’s 250th birthday of Ignaz Pleyel, who chose to live in France and who was a student of Haydn, by staging performances of his piano trios.
Reinhard Goebel and the Bayerische Kammerphilharmonie will specialise in studying and performing works by lesser-known musicians who lived in the shadow of the great masters. Together with violinist Yura Lee, who won the Violin Competition Leopold Mozart 2006, the conductor will not only direct the audience’s attention to a violin concerto by Saint-George, but also rediscover the programme of a Parisian “Concert Spirituel” with works by Simon Le Duc and Pierre-Montan Berton l’Ainé, which are only rarely heard.
The programme will already be recorded in a studio of the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation in March. To celebrate the Augsburg Mozart Festival it will be published by Oehms Classics on a festival CD released by Germany’s city of Mozart.
Pianoforte specialist Ludwig Sémerjian, who has just lately made his mark by recording all sonatas by Mozart, will give the audience an idea of the tonal quality of an authentic Stein pianoforte in the intimate surroundings of the Schaezlerpalais. Sémerjian will visit Germany’s city of Mozart as a guest artist from the Canadian twin region of Quebec.
All the concerts have one thing in common: French pieces of music will be performed alongside works from the Vienna Classic and Mozart, who was very much inspired by French orchestra culture and the fashion of concertantes when he was in Paris in 1778.
Accompanying the festival and for the first time ever, there will be a piano masterclass in memory of the famous piano builder Joh. Andreas Stein, who lived and worked in Augsburg. The masterclass will be directed by piano player and composer Professor András Hamary (Wurzburg College of Music), who will also be „composer in residence“ at the Augsburg Mozart Festival 2007. One piece of music by Hamary will receive its world premiere on May 18th – performed by the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart.
biography Joseph de Bologne Chevalier de Saint-George for download
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