Nino Rota's "Divertimento concertante for double bass and orchestra" was performed by the WDR Sinfonieorchester under the baton of Andris Poga in the Kölner Philharmonie on 04.12.2021. The soloist was Stanislau Anishchanka, principal double bass of the WDR Symphony Orchestra.
Nino Rota - Divertimento concertante for double bass and orchestra.
00:00:00 I. Allegro
00:01:48 II. Marcia
00:09:34 III. Aria. Andante
00:14:00 IV. Finale. Allegro Marcato
Stanislau Anishchanka, double bass
WDR Symphony Orchestra
Andris Poga, conductor
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○ Introduction to works
The concert business has a hard time with boundary crossers who also cavort in genres that are dismissed as mere commodity music. There is often skepticism towards all those who do not exclusively uphold the lofty sublimity of the art of sound, but have earned their merits through film music, for example. The Italian composer Nino Rota is an example of this impermeability of the music business. He became famous for his more than 150 film scores, for example for "La strada," "La dolce vita" and "8 ½" by Federico Fellini, "The Leopard" by Luchino Visconti and "The Godfather" by Francis Ford Coppola. The Milan-born composer was awarded an "Oscar" in 1975 for the score to "The Godfather II."
Rota himself, however, saw himself as a classical composer who also wrote film music. And indeed he left behind just as much concert music, as well as eleven operas and five ballets. As a musical quality criterion, unconditional innovation was alien to his nature. When composing, Rota said, he felt happy, and he did everything to give everyone a moment of happiness: "That's the heart of my music."
The Divertimento concertante was written between 1968 and 1973, and Rota penned it for Italian double bassist Franco Petracchi, who was only in his early 20s at the time. The title suggests a hybrid form - between divertimento and sinfonia concertante. Rota's work also exudes the entertaining lightness of the 18th-century divertimenti, with a solo double bass adding the concertante moment. In the first movement, Rota repeatedly builds unexpected surprise notes into the melodies - the composer as a tongue-in-cheek filou. In the burlesque march, the double bass wanders lively through the pitches: sometimes hurriedly upwards, sometimes defiantly into humming depths. But the largest instrument of the string section can also sing: in the third movement, "Aria", it shows its elegiac-sensual side. Lively, with fluttering flags and whirling madness, the double bass and orchestra finally offer a veritable bouncer.
(Text: Otto Hagedorn)
8 июл 2024
