Italian cellist and composer Giovanni Sollima is a classical music artist with a rock star status, called the Jimmy Hendrix of classical music. He will visit the Liepāja Concert Hall with a program where we will feel the Venetian atmosphere – the mosaic of the city, a historical melting pot of various cultures. Giovanni Sollima will perform in Liepāja together with masters of the historical repertoire, the Italian orchestra Il Pomo d'Oro, who have gained world recognition and whose performances are characterized by extraordinary artistry, articulation of form, and the golden brilliance of the South. We will experience the revival of Antonio Vivaldi’s lost concertos and Sollima’s discoveries in the folk music of Cyprus and Albania. In his unique arrangements, the Baroque past will meet contemporary music.

This concert program is dedicated to Venice, once home to diverse communities from all Mediterranean regions, from the North till the Levante. This social variety is now lost, but the toponyms remain, as Venice still has its own Greek Boulevard, Slavic Embankment, Albanian Square, Turkish Storehouse, Croatian and Moor Streets, German Square, Armenian Arcade, and many other places that remind us of the once-fertile ground for the flourishing of art in Venice.

Giovanni Sollima draws inspiration from history and philosophy as well as literature and art. His compositions mention ancient philosophers such as Empedocles, artists and writers such as da Vinci, Leonardo, Pasolini and Warhol, and even comment on modern phenomena such as mafia crime in Italy.

He believes that any piece that comes from the past is reborn in the present reality of performance and listening. For this reason, Sollima chose to explore Venetian musical heritage and to restore some of its lost chapters. This concert program will feature a gondoliers’ song by Giuseppe Tartini, Sollima’s own original works and arrangements of folk dance songs from Cyprus and Arbëreshë folk melodies.

This will be a very special opportunity to experience Vivaldi ’s opus – Concerto perduto (Lost Concert) for cello, string, and basso continuo, RV 787, and fragments from the cello concerto Per Teresa (For Teresa), RV 788. A single viola section remains from these two works, and Sollima has supplemented it, creating unique pieces for the cello and orchestra.

Artists:

Giovanni Sollima, cello
Orchestra Il Pomo d'Oro
Federico Guglielmo, violin

Program:

Part I

Cypriot folk dance Kartsilamades I, arranged by Giovanni Sollima for violin, cello and orchestra

Giuseppe TARTÍNI Venetian Gondoliers’ Song (‘Tasso’s Song’) Lieto ti prendo e poi

Giovanni SOLLIMA Il Concerto Perduto (‘The Lost Concert’) for cello, strings and basso continuo (from the only instrumental part of Vivaldi’s cello concerto RV 787 Per Teresa)

Antonio VIVALDI Concerto for violin, cello, strings and basso continuo in C major RV 547

Arberes folk melody Moje Bokura, arranged by Giovanni Sollima for cello, strings and basso continuo


Part II

Giovanni SOLLIMA Moghul for violin, strings and basso continuo

Cypriot folk dance Kartsilamades II, arranged by Giovanni Sollima for violin, cello and orchestra

Cypriot folk dance Kartsilamades III, arrangement for violin, cello and group of instruments by Giovanni Sollima

Antonio VIVALDI Concerto Il Proteo, o sia il mondo al rovescio (‘Proteus or the World upside down’) for violin, cello, strings and basso continuo in F major RV 544

Antonio VIVALDI Recitative from Concerto Grosso Mogul for violin and basso continuo RV 208

Giovanni SOLLIMA The Family Tree for violin, cello, strings and basso continuo