Allegro Vivo opens with violin guitar concerto premiere

Austria’s ORF reported that the 48th Allegro Vivo Festival opened on Sunday with a world premiere and works by Ottorino Respighi and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The opening concert at the Altenburg Abbey Library in the Horn district focused on a musical journey to Italy.

The centrepiece was the world premiere of a double concerto for violin, guitar and string orchestra. Festival director Vahid Khadem-Missagh and guitarist Alexander Swete performed the solo parts with the festival orchestra.

Khadem-Missagh said the opening programme was dedicated to the “southeastern lifelines of Europe”. The choice of violin and guitar was also linked to the Italian violin maker Antonio Stradivari, who built both violins and guitars, and to the virtuoso Niccolò Paganini, who played both instruments.

Swete said the combination was rare and particularly appealing because it brought together plucked and bowed instruments. The work was commissioned from Tristan Schulze, a German composer living in Vienna, who described writing for the two very different instruments as a challenge. He said he aimed to create a balance between them.

The concerto brought together elements of flamenco, jazz, Brazilian music and tango. The guitar was especially prominent and entered into a varied dialogue with the violin.

Respighi’s “Antiche Danze ed Arie” was performed before the concerto. The programme ended with Tchaikovsky’s “Souvenir de Florence”, one of his most important chamber works, which was composed in Italy.

The festival opening also marked the start of the Allegro Vivo International Summer Academy. Almost 600 musicians from around the world will spend the coming weeks in the Waldviertel region. More than 50 concerts are scheduled through September in the region’s abbeys, fortresses and castles.

Ö1 will broadcast the concert on August 25 at 2.05 p.m.