Lucerne Festival Orchestra | Riccardo Chailly | Marie-Nicole Lemieux by Various, zo. 10 apr 2022, Van (2022/2022), Dirigent Riccardo Chailly, KKL Luzern, Luzern, Zwitserland

From the spring of 1830 to the fall of 1831, Felix Mendelssohn traveled through Italy. While there, he also met his French colleague Hector Berlioz, six years his senior, who had just won the “Prix de Rome” and was spending his scholarship period studying in the Eternal City. The two composers quickly became friends, meeting almost every day for several weeks. They discussed art and music, went riding through the Campagna, visited the tomb of Tasso, and toured the Baths of Caracalla. For all their human closeness, however, their artistic appreciation remained somewhat one-sided: Berlioz admired Mendelssohn’s music, but Mendelssohn was critical of Berlioz’s musical language. Nevertheless, twelve years later he invited Berlioz to Leipzig for concerts with the Gewandhaus Orchestra: at least on this occasion, he expressed more positive views about Les Nuits d’été. Berlioz, for his part, included in his conducting repertoire Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony, which was written as a reaction to the experiences and impressions of the trip to Italy. How “Italian” this work really is will become clear in its juxtaposition with the master of brio: Gioachino Rossini.