Stefano Montanari by Beethoven, Brahms, Von Weber, Alkaen (2016/2016), Musiikinjohto Stefano Montanari, Cortile di Palazzo Pitti, Florence, Italy

“Destiny knocking at the door”, tremendous and irrevocable, begins the first movement of Symphony No. 5 . A succession of four notes, probably the most famous in the history of music, to describe the clash between light and darkness, humanity's dramatic struggle with the blind designs of fate. Alongside this monumental masterpiece, the creation of which occupied Ludwig van Beethoven for four years between 1804 and 1808, the program presents the brilliant Concerto for bassoon and orchestra by Carl Maria von Weber and the Variations in B flat major created by Johannes Brahms starting from a manuscript by Joseph Haydn preserved in the library of the Viennese Society of Friends of Music, in turn a quotation from a theme of the Chorale S. Antonii , an ancient Austrian processional song.