Dubai Opera will welcome two internationally-acclaimed Italian maestros on Sunday 25th June, as flautist Tommaso Benciolini, the winner of the 2017 New York Respighi Prize, and pianist Leonora Armellini, a multiple prize winner at the International Piano Competition ‘F. Chopin’, travel to the UAE to present a concert entitled From Italy with Love as part of the VIP Classical initiative, organised by SAMIT Event Group. 

The evening’s programme opens with Antonín Dvořák’s Sonatina, a four-movement work initially released in 1893 for violin and piano, with the duo presenting an arrangement for flute and piano for this concert. Marking the last chamber composition that Dvořák wrote during his richly-rewarding time in the USA, the Sonatina is a rather obscure yet charming work, full of lush, lyrical melodies, as well as a touch of the American folk influence that is felt most strongly in Dvořák’s famous New World symphony. 

Next comes Robert Schumann’s Fantasiestücke (‘Fantastic Pieces’), an 1849 work that was originally intended for clarinet and piano but has been arranged for a multitude of instruments since its release. Divided into three segments, the piece is characterised by a lively and energetic tone, containing a number of abrupt mood changes that are often present in much of Schumann’s oeuvre. Finally, following a brief intermission, the two artists will close the evening with César Franck’s beloved Sonata in A major, composed in 1886 as a wedding present for violinist Eugène Ysaÿe and widely regarded as one of the most exemplary masterpieces created in the sonata form. In its original arrangement for violin and piano, the piece easily ranks highly among the composer’s best-known works, and is acclaimed for its extensive harmonic depth, tonal beauty and cyclic nature, with all its four movements sharing common thematic threads that reappear in altered and transformed ways, in a technique inspired by Franz Liszt.

 

Programme 

PART 1

 

Antonín Dvořák
Sonatine Op. 100 for flute and piano

Allegro risoluto

 Larghetto

Scherzo e Trio: Allegro Vivace

Finale: Allegro

Robert Schumann 
Fantastic Pieces Op. 73 for flute and piano

 Zart und mit Ausdruck 

 Lebhaft, leicht

Rasch, mit Feuer

 

INTERMISSION

 

PART 2

 

Francis Poulenc

Sonata for flute and piano

Allegretto malinconico

Cantilena: assez lent

Presto giocoso

 

Alfredo Casella

Sicilienne et Burlesque

 

Frank Martin

Ballade

 

Tommaso Benciolini, flute
Leonora Armellini, piano