The saint of music

I’ve seen Santa Cecilia often enough in churches and museums. Finally I’ve heard Santa her. Santa Cecilia is the saint of music and she gives her name to perhaps Italy’s and Rome’s key musical institution (La Scala and others may disagree), the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. We missed their orchestra on tour in Frankfurt but we caught the first of their annual concert series in Rome. It was at Parco della Musica, a music complex of five theatres designed by Renzo Piano, in the concert hall called, what else, Sala Santa Cecilia. This is a big room lined with bulging timber that seats 2,744. Getting there was somewhat a trial, negotiating rough unlit footpaths along busy traffic but the room is good. The Italians were chatty (very much in the aisles) and the orchestra is informal. It was a good size, ~95 with seven bassist playing played 5-string instruments. From the top, this was an exciting and entertaining concert played with lovely skills and strong dynamics. Glinka Ruslan and Ludmilla overture opened at a pace way beyond when I’ve played it. So it should, all cascading scalar runs and exhilaration. Great! Then visiting Russian pianist, Daniil Trifonov, playing Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto no.3 Dminor. Again, stunning and thrilling and dense with notes. Ferocious, lush, romantic with the second movement running into the third and virtuosic piano. Fabulous playing by Trifonov and nicely conversational by the orchestra. Then a little encore on solo piano and a strange sight of Italians standing and chatting throughout the hall, at least those who didn’t exit for the interval. And the finale, Tchaikovsky Symphony no.4. To paraphrase Wikipedia, it’s a loose structure of large-scale orchestral writing and emotions and instrumental colors; a hybrid of the symphony’s architectural form and the symphonic poem’s literary form with self-contained contrasting sections displaying drama within movements. Whatever, it was exhilarating and emotional and sweeping and played with massed forces. Again a wonderful and involving performance. Santa Cecilia deserves her place.

The Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia performed Glinka, Rachmnainov and Tchaikovskyat Parco della Musica in Rome. Antonio Pappano (conductor) directed and Daniil Trifonov (piano) soloed.