Cordially invite you to

Music and Movies

A piano concert by Roberto Turrin

Tuesday, January 23th, 2024 - 5:30pm

University Auditorium/Vi Community
620 Sand Hill Rd., Palo Alto, CA 94304

Music By

DARIUS MILHAUD
MARIO CASTELNUOVO TEDESCO
NINO ROTA

Roberto Turrin graduated from the Conservatorio di Musica G. Tartini di Trieste (Trieste, Italy), Switzerland. After receiving awards from the International Music Competitions in Stresa and Morcone, Italy, Turrin began his career as a soloist, performing in North America and throughout Europe. His tours received wide acclaim from the public and critics alike.

Among Turrin’s accomplishments are duet ensembles with violin and clarinet and recordings for television and radio including RAI in Italy, Radiotelevizija Slovenija, TV Polska, and Belarus TV. He is the Artistic Director of the international music festival echos and has given masterclasses on Italian piano literature of the 20th century at San Francisco State University, University of Illinois at Chicago, Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, Konservatorium Innsbruck, and Norges musikkhøgskole in Oslo, among others.

Free Admission | Registration Required

The Program

Since 1895, when for the first time the French Lumière brothers screened ten one-minute films at the Grand Café des Capucines in Paris, the development of cinematography (or "seventh art" as it was then defined) attracted more and more the interest of many composers from the classical tradition, convinced of the close expressive relationships inherent in joint narration through sounds and images.

The 17 short scenes included in “L'Album de Madame Bovary op 128b” of 1933, Darius Milhaud's original transcription of the soundtrack he composed for the film "Madame Bovary" by J. Renoir, well represent the contrasting emotional impulses of the protagonist Emma, always struggling between the passionate search for happiness and the darkest despair due to the impossible acceptance of ordinary and daily reality.

The four-piece cycle "Stars-four sketches for Piano op. 104" was written by Mario Castelnuovo Tedesco in 1939 as soon as he arrived in New York, after fleeing Italy following the racial laws of 1938: dedicated to four Hollywood movie divas such as Greta Garbo, Deanna Durbin, Marlene Dietrich and Shirley Temple, already highlight the composer's interest in the world of Hollywood even before his move to California and the beginning of collaborations with important movies directors such as R. Clair, R. Siodmark and C. Vidor.

The two Film Studies op. 67 of 1931, dedicated to Carlo Zecchi, are instead a tribute to two of the most important characters in the history of cinema such as Charlot and Topolino, of which Castelnuovo Tedesco was fascinated: the sad and reflective character of Charlot and the jaunty and lively one of Mickey Mouse are well represented in the sprints, tumbles, pauses and successive cascades of notes of the two songs, with in "Mickey Mouse" also short humorous quotes from Bizet and Puccini.