ERNEST CHAUSSON
Viviane, op. 5
ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD
Konzert für Violine und Orchester D-Dur, op. 35
1. Moderato nobile
2. Romance: Andante
3. Allegro assai vivace
ZOLTÁN KODÁLY
Psalmus Hungaricus
für Tenor, gemischten Chor und Orchester
Tänze aus Galánta
Orchester und Chor der Tiroler Festspiele Erl
Conductor Erik Nielsen
Violin Timothy Chooi
Tenor Clay Hilley
The opening concert takes audiences on a long journey from the Bethlehem of the Old Testament via the legendary kingdom of King Arthur and a village in the Hungary of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy to Hollywood, metropolis of the film industry.
Erik Nielsen conducts the Orchestra of the Tyrol Festival Erl and the programme begins with Ernest Chausson’s tone poem Viviane, which the Frenchman composed under the musical impression of what he had experienced at the world premiere
of Wagner’s Parsifal. The entrancing music traces the legend of Viviane, lover of the sorcerer Merlin. American violinist Timothy Chooi is the soloist in the melodramatic Violin Concerto by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, the composer who in Vienna at the fin de siècle was celebrated as a child prodigy, who later followed the call to Hollywood where he had a successful career composing film music. At the same time he continued to write mellifluous concert works into which he incorporated melodramatic themes from film music. The orchestra is then joined by the Choir of the Tyrol Festival Erl and American tenor Clay Hilley for the performance of Zoltán Kodály’s poignant Psalmus Hungaricus, a Hungarian adaptation of a psalm by David. The concert comes to a close with the Dances from Galánta, inspired by music played by a gypsy band in the village where Kodály lived as a child.