About MiCLatest UpdatesConcert ListConcert-ToursPast ConcertsConcert ProducersMusic Sheets Submit a ConcertContact MICWhat Is Film Music?Concert Music based on film musicSoundtrack RadiosLinksPrivacy Notes
Get all concert-info as soon as it's published with our
feed.
28 June 2026 Bochum (Germany)
Trip to Italy
Bochumer Symphoniker conducted by Tianyi Lu - Anneliese Brost Musikforum Ruhr, Großer Saal
Program Info: Bochumer Symphoniker Tianyi Lu, conductor Christian Poltéra, violoncello
At the age of 22, Richard Strauss travelled to Rome and Naples. Then he recorded his impressions in a composition: "From Italy". He called this work a "symphonic fantasy" – it is no longer a symphony (despite the four movements), but it is not yet symphonic poetry either. The 3rd movement, "On the Beach of Sorrento", unfolds a fascinating, almost impressionistic soundscape that is unusual for Strauss. The composer spoke of a "mood picture", an interweaving of natural sounds (wind, water, bird calls) with his own sensations.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold was one of the most successful opera composers of the 1920s. In American exile, he became an important film composer who was to shape the musical language of Hollywood. Korngold understood his film scores as "dramatic symphonic music" or "operas without singing". One of the last films for which he composed was called "Devotion" (1946). It plays among musicians and culminates in the performance of a small (one-movement) cello concerto, which Korngold composed in its entirety – and then published as an independent work.
Ottorino Respighi wrote a three-movement cello concerto for a student friend at a young age. Unfortunately, the concerto was lost – except for the Adagio movement. Respighi later revised it again, initially for violoncello and piano. In 1921 – by which time Respighi had long been a professor of composition in Rome – he turned the Adagio with Variations into a one-movement cello concerto with orchestra. It is, as we know it from Respighi, a beautiful, serious, tonally masterful piece.
Felix Mendelssohn also travelled to Italy at a young age (1830-1832). He then wrote his "Italian" Symphony, which he considered his "funniest piece". The celebrated premiere in London in 1833 was conducted by Mendelssohn himself. But this remained the only performance of the "Italian" in his lifetime – the composer still wanted to "improve" something about it, but never got around to it. In the 1st movement you can feel the irrepressible enterprising spirit of the Italian traveler. The 3rd movement is reminiscent of an elegant minuet, the 4th movement of a wild Neapolitan folk dance. In the "Andante", however, there is a moving funeral march – Mendelssohn's patrons Goethe and Zelter had both died in 1832.
Program Richard Strauss - "On the Beach of Sorrento" from "From Italy" op. 16 Erich Wolfgang Korngold - Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra op. 37 started life in the movie DECEPTION Ottorino Respighi - "Adagio con Variazione" for violoncello and orchestra p. 133 Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy - Symphony No. 4 in A major op. 90 "Italian"
feed.
