1st Symphony concert by Beethoven, Ginastera, Πεμ 13 Οκτ 2022, Aπό (2022/2022), αγωγός Enrico Calesso, Hochschule für Musik, Karlsruhe, Germany

Mountains have always been considered magical, divine places that connect heaven and earth. The Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli dedicated his 2012 composition "Sciliar" to the mountain of the same name in the South Tyrolean Dolomites. "Sciliar" deals with the impressions that the mountain evokes in people, with these natural experiences paving the way to one's own self. Battistelli describes it as "the musical vision of a mythical and autobiographical topos, in which the ear and the eye search for the divine (...)". More than 200 years earlier, Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his 6th symphony, the "Pastorale", in which the feelings of an urban person in nature are recreated in a similar way. Both works are not to be understood as pure musical reproductions of nature - even if in the "Pastorale" the babbling of a brook, birdsong and thunderstorms cannot be ignored in the music. Rather, it is about depicting the moods that nature exerts on the viewer through the music. "More expression of feeling than painting," Beethoven noted in the score. This instruction can also be applied to Battistelli's composition. Between the two works stands Alberto Ginastera's harp concerto, which premiered in 1965 and combines rhythms inspired by the Argentinean Malambo with the folkloric elements of the "Pastorale".