The 2008-2009 Concert Season at the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari continues with its fourteenth appointment, on Friday 6th March at 8.30pm (session A) and Saturday 7th March at 7pm (session B), performed by the Teatro Lirico Orchestra, conducted by the Leopold Hager, the Austrian conducter, who is in Cagliari for the first time. The soloist is the exceptional Neopolitan pianist Sandro De Palma, who was much applauded for his performance in November 2007 at the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, Concert N. 2 in F minor for piano and orchestra op. 21 by Fryderyk Chopin.

The musical programme includes: Leonore III in C major op. 72a by Ludwig van Beethoven; Concerto in A minor for piano and orchestra op. 16 by Edvard Grieg; Symphony N. 4 in A major “Italiana” op. 90 by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.

The concert opens with the overture of Leonore III by Ludwig van Beethoven (Bonn, 1770 – Vienna, 1827), which, as is well known, was written in 1806, and together with three other versions comes from the only opera composed by the brilliant German composer, entitled Fidelio.

Edvard Grieg (Bergen, 1843 – 1907) spent the whole summer of 1868 in Denmark where he composed the Concerto in A minor, the only piece written by the Norwegian composer for solists and orchestra. The concert, which clearly influenced by Robert Schumann, highlights particularly Grieg’s interest for popular Norwegian music.

The second part of the concert is dedicated to Symphony N.4 the famous “Italiana”, by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (Hamburg, 1809 – Lipsia, 1847). Another occasion to appreciate the German composer’s stylistic qualities and talented orchestration. This work, composed in 1833, is the most popular of his five symphonies.