Pizzicato e Cantabile | SYMPHONY OF SPACE. Festival Opening

Performers:
Olena Matseliukh — organ
Melania Makarevych — piano

Program:
Jacques-Louis Battmann — Concert Fantasy
César Franck — Prelude, Fugue and Variation No. 3, Op. 18
Eugène Ketterer — Popular Motifs or Paraphrases on Themes from Charles Gounod’s Opera “Faust”
Alexandre Guilmant — Pastorale
Clifford Demarest — Rhapsody
Edward Elgar — Nimrod from Enigma Variations
Pietro Yon — Finale from Gregorian Concerto

Long before the Viennese classics established the canon of the classical four-movement symphony, the ancient Greeks used the word symphonia to mean harmonious and unified sound. Striving to achieve this very harmony on the opening evening of the festival will be the long-time participants of Pizzicato e Cantabile: organist Olena Matseliukh and pianist Melania Makarevych.

Thus, the first part of the festival’s summer opening will feature French composers — masters of musical color and timbral light. In their refined writing style, the emotional intonations of musical Romanticism gradually flow into the subtle semitones of Impressionism. The evening will begin with the Concert Fantasy by Jacques-Louis Battmann, a musician who devoted his life to the art of the organ. He will be followed by Camille Saint-Saëns, represented through a piece dedicated to him by César Franck — one of Franck’s most popular organ works: Prelude, Fugue, and Variation. Next, the music of Eugène Ketterer will transport listeners into the atmosphere of 19th-century salon evenings. Ketterer, known and admired for his opera paraphrases and arrangements, will be represented by his paraphrases on themes from Charles Gounod’s opera Faust. The first part of the concert will conclude with a piece by Alexandre Guilmant, one of the leading organists of the Paris Conservatory.

The program prepared by the soloists will also harmoniously combine works from Italian, English, and American music traditions, including: the Rhapsody by Clifford Demarest, the first leader of the American Guild of Organists; Nimrod from the Enigma Variations by Edward Elgar; and the Finale from the Gregorian Concerto by Pietro Yon, the Italian-born composer who conquered America.