After a pre-opening concert, violinist Nemanja Radulovic will open the 76th Menton Music Festival
The steps toward enchantment. Tomorrow, it all begins again! For the seventy-sixth year, tomorrow, the Menton Music Festival will open its doors. And for the 76th time, music lovers will climb the cobbled steps leading to the Parvis Saint-Michel. They will arrive in procession at this almost mythical place, overlooked by the impressive Basilica of Saint-Michel and its discreet sister, the Church of the White Penitents.
As they climb the steps, music lovers will remember the great moments they have experienced in the past. The oldest will remember concerts by Richter , Rostropovich , Stern , Rampal , Samson François , or Andres Segovia , these "sacred monsters " who all came to the Menton festival. More recent music lovers will remember recitals by Martha Argerich, Ivry Gitlis, Maria-Joao Pires, Fazil Say or Maxime Vengerov.
And then there will be the new listeners—those for whom tomorrow will be the first evening, and undoubtedly the first dazzling experience. All together, music lovers old and new, will ascend to the forecourt as if on an annual pilgrimage at the end of which they will find their Holy Grail: great music.
Star of the new generationThe opening concert will be given this Wednesday evening at 9 p.m. by one of the violin stars of the new generation: Nemanja Radulovic . A look and a talent to die for! A rocker look with long hair and a leather jacket. A free electron in the world of classical music. Arriving from his native Serbia at the age of 14, in 1999, he studied at the Paris Conservatory and immediately astonished his contemporaries with his appearance. We remember the discovery of this young, boisterous artist at the Midem in Cannes where Nice-Matin was one of the first newspapers to interview him. It was in 2006, when he replaced Maxim Vengerov at short notice in the Beethoven concerto at the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France that his international career really began.
Tomorrow evening, he'll perform some of the most famous works of classical music: two Bach concertos and Vivaldi's Four Seasons. He'll be accompanied by a string orchestra he's titled "Double Meaning." Double meaning? It doesn't matter what the meaning is, as long as it's the right one!
Then a thrill will pass. The same thrill as last year, thirty years ago, or 76 years ago—the thrill that, every year since the festival's inception, has brought music lovers from all corners of Europe up the long steps leading to the Parvis Saint-Michel…
A pre-opening this Tuesday eveningFor several years now, the official opening of the Music Festival has been preceded the day before by a free pre-opening concert. This Tuesday evening, it will be a concert by Romain Leleu's Sextet , which is far from being a bargain.
Romain Leleu is indeed one of our great French trumpet players with an international career, a professor at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Lyon. To form his sextet, he surrounded himself with five string musicians: two violins, a viola, a cello, and a double bass.
Together, pushing the boundaries of music, they play classical music and jazz with equal enthusiasm. This Tuesday evening, they will be performing transcriptions of Schubert 's lieder, as well as Milhaud 's Bœuf sur le toit, Saint-Saëns' Danse macabre, Cole Porter's Night and Day, and Dizzy Gillespie 's A Night in Tunisia. This is what we call eclecticism. Happiness in perspective!
Tuesday, July 22, 9 p.m., Esplanade des Sablettes. Free admission.
Vivaldi's famous Four Seasons will be performed tomorrow evening, opening the festival, by violinist Nemanja Radulovic and the Double Sens string orchestra. It is one of the first "descriptive" works in the history of music. Usually, classical music works are abstract, describing nothing. Here, the Four Seasons are four concertos for violin and orchestra that evoke spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
We hear birdsong, the sounds of nature, peasants singing, thunderstorms, harvest work, the breeze of a blizzard, and slides on snow. Vivaldi composed them in the early 18th century when he was teaching music at the Ospedale della Pieta in Venice, an institution that took in abandoned girls, orphans, poor girls, and illegitimate children.
Vivaldi formed orchestras with them. He had them perform in concert... but behind a fence so they wouldn't be disturbed by men with bad intentions! The formidable Casanova was indeed a frequent visitor to Venice at that time. It was under these circumstances that The Four Seasons were premiered. They are now performed in broad daylight. They have become one of the most performed works of classical music.
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