Viva Italia!

We’re off to sunny Italy for this week’s “Music from Marlboro.”

Like a kind of musical Hannibal, Giuseppe Verdi brought elephants to the operatic stage. The premiere of “Aida” in Cairo in 1871 featured a dozen pachyderms and fifteen camels into the bargain. But when a Naples performance of Verdi’s grandest grand opera was delayed, the composer sought diversion on a much smaller scale. Verdi tossed off his first piece of chamber music at the age of 60.

The String Quartet in E minor was given an informal performance at the Hotel delle Crocelle on April 1, 1873. Said Verdi of his latest creation, “I don’t know whether the Quartet is beautiful or ugly, but I do know that it’s a Quartet!” We’ll get to hear it in a 1969 performance featuring violinists Pina Carmirelli and Endre Granat, violist Martha Strongin Katz, and cellist Ronald Leonard.

Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4 – known as the “Italian” – had its origins in a European tour undertaken by the composer between 1829 and 1831. Mendelssohn’s Italian sojourn threw him into ecstasies. In a letter to his parents, he effused, “Italy at last! …[W]hat I have all my life considered as the greatest possible felicity is now begun, and I am basking in it. …[T]hank you, my dear parents, for having given me all this happiness.”

The composer did his best to capture his impressions in music. The symphony’s first performance in London in 1833, which Mendelssohn himself conducted, made him the most emulated composer in England for the remainder of the 19th century. However, despite the work’s overwhelmingly positive reception, he continued to feel a nagging dissatisfaction with it. He revised the symphony in 1834, with plans for further changes, and the score was never published in his lifetime. He even claimed that it caused him some of the bitterest moments of his career. Naturally, it went on to become his best-loved symphony.

We’ll hear Pablo Casals lead an enviable roster of musicians from the 1963 Marlboro Music Festival. It’s difficult to single anyone out, but Bernard Goldberg, John Mack, Myron Bloom, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Jaime Laredo, Caroline Levine, Irene Serkin, Sidney Curtiss, Samuel Rhodes, Herman Busch, Lynn Harrell, Julius Levine, and all four members of the Guarneri String Quartet are among the personnel. Casals was affiliated with Marlboro for the last 13 years of his life, from 1960 until his death, at the age of 96, in 1973.

We’ve got sunshine on a rainy day on the next “Music from Marlboro,” this Wednesday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

This summer’s Marlboro Music Festival continues through August 12. Find out more at marlboromusic.org.

Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page