Repertoire
Richard Strauss: Oboe Concerto in D, Op. 144 (1945) 25′
Antonín Dvořák: Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70 (1885) 41′
ARTISTS
Ramón Ortega, oboe
Pablo González, conductor
Barcelona Symphony Orchestra (OBC)
Programme
Richard Strauss composed the Oboe Concert encouraged by a North American performer -John de Lancie- who had visited his home as a solider after the Second World War. Despite his initial reluctance, Strauss agreed to write a score for him, in which a certain return to romantic expressivity is heard. In three movements, the virtuoso display of the soloist -Ramón Ortega in this concert- does not hide a supremely communicative character right from the very start.
Antonín Dvořák’s Seventh is a symphonic monument unfathomably pushed into the background, who knows whether somehow due to the success of his Ninth, the legendary “New World” symphony. All in all, it is an extraordinary example of his imagination for sound, which conductor Pablo González -an authority in the Czech’s musical language- will lead. It includes a festival of traditional melodies and giddy rhythms, with the grandiosity expected of one of the principal composers of Romanticism.
