Constantinos Carydis Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Ottorino Respighi

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote his Bassoon Concerto in B-flat major as an 18-year-old in 1774. He may well have written several concertos for bassoon, but this is the only one that has survived. Mozart was enthusiastic about the bassoon and there is a lot to indicate that he had extremely good knowledge about the instrument when he wrote the concerto. No one knows for sure whom he wrote it for, but it may possibly be Felix Reiner, who lived in Munich and was the most famous bassoonist of his times. This concerto is the most popular work for this instrument.

Mozart wrote the opera Idomeneo on commission for Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria, and it was premiered in Munich in 1781. Karl Theodor had moved from Mannheim to Munich a few years previous and what was considered Europe’s best orchestra came along with him. Idomeneo is in the opera seria genre. It was common for music in this genre to contain elements of ballet music. In the ballet music from Ideomeneo, Mozart use of his orchestral shine, knowing quite well that this music would be played by a world-class orchestra.

Composer, conductor, and pianist Minas Borboudakis (b. 1974) grew up on Crete and today he lives in Munich. The music in his orchestral work Z Metamorphosis is taken from the opera Z, which was premiered at the Greek National Opera in 2018. The opera is based on a famous political novel of the same name by the Greek author Vassilis Vassilikos, published in 1967. Borboudakis’ distinctive tonal language is influenced by his study of ancient Greek musicology and his music is full of references to philosophy and literature.

Ottorino Respighi (1879–1936) grew up in Bologna and starting in 1913 he lived in Rome where he worked as a composer and professor of composition. His most famous music consists of three orchestral works that all centre on Rome: Fountains of Rome, Pines of Rome, and Roman Festivals. Pines of Rome (1924) depicts four places in and around the city: at the Renaissance villa Villa Borghese, at a catacomb, at Janiculum Hill and along the Appian Way, which during Roman times was the main road into Rome from southern Italy.

In recent years, the Greek conductor Constantinos Carydis has debuted with several of Europe’s leading orchestras. Carydis is the nephew of Miltiades Caridis, who was the chief conductor at the Oslo Philharmoic in the years 1969–1975.