Echoes of the Danube and the Caucasus

The second edition of the DV’Classical International Festival opens with a  programme shaped by national music tradition. Bartók’s Divertimento for Strings brings Hungarian energy, folk inflection and rhythmic drive to the stage under Hungarian conductor Gergely Madaras, followed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s elegant and dazzling Rococo Variations, performed by world-renowned cellist Maximilian Hornung. The second half of the evening introduces Maltese audiences, for the first time, to Vaja Azarashvili’s Cello Concerto, a work distinguished by its vivid Georgian character, lyrical intensity and emotional depth. Edward Elgar’s Serenade for Strings unfolds with a moment of luminous warmth and quintessential English refinement, before the concert concludes in a burst of Georgian energy with Sulkhan Tsintsadze’s Miniature No. 6: Sachidao. Inspired by the traditions of Georgian music and dance, this vivid and rhythmically charged work provides an exhilarating and unmistakably Georgian final gesture with the De Valette Chamber Orchestra.

Carmine Lauri, Music Director

Anna Kosinska, Artistic Director

Maximilian Hornung, Cello

Gergely Madaras, Conductor

Programme:

Béla Bartók: Divertimento for String Orchestra, Sz. 113, BB 118

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra in A

major, Op.33

Vaja Azarashvili Concerto for cello and string orchestra

Edward Elgar: Serenade for Strings in E minor, Op. 20

Sulkhan Tsintsadze: Miniatures: No. 6, “Sachidao” for String Orchestra