Avi Avital | Beethoven | Bach

Just a few years ago the mandolin drew an ironic smirk from expert music lovers and was only associated with traditional music of the Mediterranean and the Middle East, or even worse with mandolinist school orchestras. Recently this instrument has bravely entered the philharmonic halls thanks to outstanding mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital. The artist has discovered for audiences a vast repertoire written by renowned composers for this inconspicuous beautifully sounding instrument. Avital also arranges for the mandolin pieces originally intended for other instruments, as well as creating his own studies of ethnic music of the Middle East and the Balkans – such compositions will crown the entire program of the evening.

During the concert, not only traditional and artistic music will mix, but also the past with the present. In the composition "Le Cahos" (Chaos) – an introduction to the dance suite "Les Élémens" by the French baroque violinist Jean-Féry Rebel – we will hear a work of tonality and dissonance closer to the music of our times than eighteenth-century tradition. The work of contemporary British composer Thomas Adès "Three Studies from Couperin" will take us back to the times and stylistics of French harpsichordists of the Baroque period, in of course a more modern approach, especially in terms of instrumentation.

The overture to Jean-Phillipe Rameau’s opera "Zoroastre" and Concerto No.1 for harpsichord, strings and continuo in D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach, are strictly Baroque works, although showing two complete and different sides of this era. The Overture of Rameau evokes the panache and pathos of Baroque opera theater and contains dance fragments announcing the ballet scenes later on in the opera. Bach's concert, which was transcribed for mandolin by artist Avi Avital, presents a more harsh sound, focusing on the form of the piece, yet also presenting the technical possibilities of the soloist. The stepping stone from the baroque sounds will be Symphony No. 8 by Ludwig van Beethoven, dating from the turn of classicism and romanticism, and completed in 1812.