Real Emotions

Two concerts in Salzburg
impress GIUSEPPE PENNISI

The Salzburg Summer Festival 2017 ended on 30 August. Over six weeks, the Festival had 195 performances in sixteen different theatres and other performing areas, with a total budget of about 60 million euros. The contribution by all levels of Government was 12.8 million euros. The rest of the financing was provided by box office takings (260,000 paying spectators coming from 79 nations, including forty non-Europeancountries), sponsors, sales of productions to theatres and festivals, and television and recording royalties. Gross of taxes, profits have been 29.9 million euros. These figures indicate the festival's success.

I spent an intense week in Salzburg, focusing on the four operas with a common theme of power, lust and sex. In just the opera section, the festival offered six fully-staged operas and five in semi-staged or concertversions, along with very rich sections of contemporary music, sacredmusic, symphonic and chamber music, drama and a special children's program.

I saw and heard only a very small sample of the concert section: a concert for soloists and a concert for a symphony orchestra with a pianist.

The first was on 23 August 2017 in the enormous Grosses Festspielhaus. Two of the world's best known pianists, Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim, played music by Mozart, Schumann and Debussy. At the start, the audience's attention was attracted by the presence of the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, and of his wife in the central box. Mr Macron has, inter alia, a piano diploma. But when Ms Argerich and Mr Barenboim came to the stage, hand in hand like brother and sister, the attention was only for them.

The first part of the concert included Mozart's Sonata for two pianosK 448, and Schumann's Six studies in Canonic Form, Op 56. The second was entirely dedicated to Debussy: En Blanc et Noir, La Mer (Trois esquisses symphoniques) and also Prélude à l'après midi d'un faune in the version for two pianos, as an encore strongly requested by the audience. In my opinion, Mozart's gentle sonata was too scholarly for pianists of this caliber. I, and the rest of the audience felt real emotions in the second part of the concert, especially for the Prélude à l'après midi d'un faune.

On 25 August 2017, in the Felsenreitschule, I saw and heard the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester conducted by Ingo Metzmacher and with the participation of Jean-Yves Thibaudet. The program was twentieth centurymusic: a piece by Schoenberg — Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielszene, Op 34, which was composed for a German film which was never made (due to the development of the political situation in Germany); Gershwin's Concerto for piano and orchestra in F major, Bartók's The Miraculous Mandarin, Op 19, and Ravel's Suite No 2 from Daphnis et Chloé.

Hence a rather compact program. The Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Ingo Metzmacher confirmed their high quality. The audience was enthralled.