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From Baroque to Romantic
More from this summer's Salzburg Festival,
reported by GIUSEPPE PENNISI
An interesting feature of the Salzburg Summer Festival 2012 was the possibility to follow, in a week, a path from Baroque to Romantic music. During the time I spent in the lovely Austrian town, in addition to Zimmermann's Die Soldaten [see World without God, 30 August 2012], I had the opportunity to enjoy Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto, von Winter's Das Labyrinth (the follow up to Mozart's Die Zauberflöte) and part of the full cycle of Beethoven's piano and violin sonatas. Although they are very different musical compositions and styles, there is a fil rouge linking them: the progress from baroque to romantic music, especially in Germany.
Giulio Cesare in Egitto was written and composed for a London audience by a German composer; it was Handel's fifth opera for the capital of the United Kingdom and its success established him as the most authoritative musician in the country just in the very period when there was serious political infighting between the Royal House of German origins (the Hanovers) and a section of the Parliament; there was a similar struggle on the musical scene between the Saxon, Handel, and his competitors, including some of his former students [see Sex and Absolute Power, 21 March 2011]...
Copyright © 4 September 2012
Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy
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