Richard Wagner, "Rienzi" - Overture

Robert Ley, a well-known and highly corrupt Nazi party leader who committed suicide in his cell during the Nuremberg trials, once asked Hitler why he had decided to open the annual party meeting with the overture to Richard Wagner's opera Rienzi. The dictator replied thus:

"...It's not just a musical question. At the age of twenty-four this man, an innkeeper's son, persuaded the Roman people to drive out the corrupt Senate by reminding them of the magnificent past of the Roman Empire. Listening to this blessed music as a young man in the theater at Linz, I had the vision that I too must someday succeed in uniting the German Empire and making it great once more."

Well. At the end of the war, Germany did not end up greater but rather reduced to rubble. The anecdote, however, serves to illustrate Hitler's curious fascination with Rienzi, the mythical hero of Wagner's work who will end his days trapped and defeated.

The play, whose full title is Rienzi, Last of the Roman Tribunes, is based on a novel of the same title, a 19th century best seller by an English author. It tells the story of Cola di Rienzi, a papal notary turned political leader, who lived in medieval Italy and managed to defeat the noble classes of Rome by handing over power to the people. His vicissitudes will end when he must face, with a few followers, his fatal destiny.

R. Wagner (1813 - 1893)

With texts and music by Wagner, the opera was written between July 1838 and November 1840. Its premiere, an apotheosis, took place in Dresden on October 20, 1842, and it represented the musical consecration of the composer at the age of twenty-nine. The Flying Dutchman (1841), Tannhäuser (1843), and Lohengrin (1845) were soon to follow.

The play is extensive. Originally it had five acts and its representation would take more than six hours. Wagner wrote shorter versions later, but it is still rarely performed today, although its Overture still enjoys wide public acclaim.

The Orchestra of the Franz Liszt University of Music, Weimar, conducted by Nicolas Pasquet, performs Rienzi Overture.

J. Strauss, Tales from the Vienna Woods

Around 1860, at the age of thirty-five, Johann Strauss Jr. envisioned that the Viennese waltz, the famous dance that captivated the Viennese at that time, could gain acceptance and recognition among an international audience. If, in addition, he managed to transfer to that new audience part of the spirit and charm of the land from which he came, so much the better. With this in mind, he set about composing music that would reflect the magic and enchantment of the forests surrounding 19th-century imperial Vienna.

Strauss Jr. (1825 - 1899)

Tales from the Vienna Woods
And he was right. The waltz Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald is, indisputably, after the unsurpassed Blue Danube, one of Johann Strauss Jr.'s most recognized waltzes worldwide.
It is a concert piece, no doubt. Its complete version lasts about fifteen minutes, although we usually hear reduced versions, with uneven results, as the conductor in charge omits the repetitions or even one or two complete pieces. Brazilian conductor and composer Fabio Costa is an exception. He is also an exception in a broader sense, as he usually addresses a few words to the audience at each concert.

Violins, in absence of a zither
The work, composed in 1868 (one year after the Blue D...) originally included a virtuoso zither part. Since today, at least in the Western world, there are no "zitherists" or zither players around the corner, it is customary to replace it with a quartet of violins, or a couple of them if the orchestra is not very large. This is precisely the case with the version we present here. The sections originally commissioned to the zither correspond here to minutes 2:12 to 2:39, and 14:08 to 14:43. And the waltz proper begins at minute 3:01.

Fabio Costa conducts the Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra.