Orchestre de Paris

Ava Bahari, violin
Orchestre de Paris
Bar Avni, conductor

PROGRAMME
Joan Tower: Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman n° 2
Bizet / Rodion Shchedrin: Suite de Carmen
Chausson: Poème
Ravel: Tzigane
Milhaud: Le Boeuf sur le toit

VENUE NOTE:
Rhythmic energy and dance momentum dominate this contrasting program, which sees Ava Bahari’s bow climb the Everest of virtuosos: Ravel’s Gypsy.

The second of the Joan Tower Fanfares continues the tribute to “extraordinary” women by making the percussion shine. His energy is a prelude to that of the Carmen Suite, assembled at the request of his wife, the ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, by the Soviet composer Rodion Shchedrin. A virtuoso pianist and lover of popular music, he succeeded in condensing the best pages of Bizet’s opera while keeping their flavour.

A distant Russian atmosphere remains with Chausson’s bewitching Poème, inspired by a short story by Turgenev, in which painful lyricism, alternating with paroxysmal vehemence, gives the violin a magnetic eloquence.

An impressive modern variation on the spirit of Liszt and Paganini, Ravel’s Gypsy pushes the limits of violin virtuosity by requiring the instrument to be in turn sensual, aggressive, danceable, grating, epic, and unleashed…

Finally, Milhaud takes us to Brazil with his famous Bœuf sur le toit, which parades, in a joyful surrealist disjointedness, carnival characters carried by samba, rumba or tango.