Awakening

Matthias Pintscher’s 2nd Cello Concerto ranges between dream and reality in a no man’s land. The poem un despertar – An Awakening by Octavio Paz, which gives the work its title, describes a situation of intimate self-reflection. “An artist looks at herself in the mirror and is alarmed about what he or she sees”, is how the cellist and dedicatee Alisa Weilerstein imagines the poetic “I”. Rameau’s comic opera Platée also deals with a bitter awakening: at a staged wedding with the god Jupiter, the nymph from the marshes is forced to realise that she was only a plaything in a “divine” prank. Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 was later given the epithet “Jupiter Symphony” due to the all-surpassing bright spirit of its dazzling C major Finale. This scintillating last movement culminates in a five-voice fugue, the themes of which resemble dramatic characters. The themes profoundly stretched the boundaries of decorous contrapuntal composition, constituting a high point of the symphonic genre. Three great musical dramatists are combined in a concert spanning four centuries with Francois-Xavier Roth, a time traveller par excellence.