Asolo resonates with music: the 47th edition of the international Chamber Music festival returns “Incontri Asolani”
From 1 to 12 September, the Church of St. Gotthard is transformed into a stage of excellence with great performers, original proposals and the beginning of a cycle dedicated to Beethoven
This year too, Asolo is becoming a stage of excellence for chamber music, with the return of Incontri Asolani, the International Festival promoted by Asolo Musica – Veneto Musica, now in its 47th edition. One of the longest-running and most anticipated events on the Italian chamber music scene, which every year welcomes artists of the highest level and a passionate audience to Asolo. The Church of San Gottardo, an architectural jewel overlooking the valley, is the beating heart of the exhibition: a cozy and evocative space, which has always invited the most intimate and profound listening.
Six events are scheduled from ’1 to 12 September, with soloists, ensembles and young talents as protagonists, engaged in listening journeys that range from tributes to great composers, chamber rereadings and masterpieces of musical literature. The event confirms itself as a privileged opportunity for listening to refined programs of high artistic quality, with a careful look at the valorisation of the chamber repertoire and the promotion of the musical culture linked to the Veneto territory.
This year too, Asolo is becoming a stage of excellence for chamber music, with the return of Incontri Asolani, the International Festival promoted by Asolo Musica – Veneto Musica, now in its 47th edition. One of the longest-running and most anticipated events on the Italian chamber music scene, which every year welcomes artists of the highest level and a passionate audience to Asolo. The Church of San Gottardo, an architectural jewel overlooking the valley, is the beating heart of the exhibition: a cozy and evocative space, which has always invited the most intimate and profound listening.
Six events are scheduled from ’1 to 12 September, with soloists, ensembles and young talents as protagonists, engaged in listening journeys that range from tributes to great composers, chamber rereadings and masterpieces of musical literature. The event confirms itself as a privileged opportunity for listening to refined programs of high artistic quality, with a careful look at the valorisation of the chamber repertoire and the promotion of the musical culture linked to the Veneto territory.
The anniversaries of the great composers who have marked the history of music are always a stimulus for those who plan the musical seasons, even if certain authors do not have to wait until the cadence of ten or fifty years to come out into the open – says artistic director Federico Pupo – Bach, therefore, is always fine with it, this year in the company of Šostakovič for the fifty years since his death. But the approach of the Beethoven anniversary of 2027 suggested that we begin a three-year journey involving the performance of the Nine Symphonies in chamber versions by Hans Sitt and Theodor Kirchner who dabbled in the domestic evenings of the time and, I am sure, today’s audience too.
Program
The festival opens on Monday 1° September at 9.00 pm with a concert dedicated to “Women in music”;. The protagonists are Gloria Campaner on piano and Miriam Prandi on cello: two Italian artists appreciated on the international scene, engaged in a program that intertwines different eras and styles, from Nadia Boulanger to Claude Debussy, from Johannes Brahms to Astor Piazzolla. A musical journey that pays homage to the female creative force, expressive freedom and poetic intelligence of the performers and composers.
The project “Beethoven 198” is inaugurated on Wednesday 3 September at 9 pm, again in the Church of St. Gotthard, proposing the complete Beethoven Symphonies in the rare nineteenth-century transcription for two eight-hand pianos by Theodor Kirchner. The program includes Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21 and Symphony No. 4 in B-flat major, Op. 60. The protagonists are eight young talents including Alfonso Alberti and Antonio Tarallo. A unique opportunity to listen to two of Beethoven’s masterpieces in a chamber music form of extraordinary energy and rigour.
The Cremona Quartet on Friday 5 September, again at 9.00 pm, explores the contrapuntal universe of Johann Sebastian Bach by bringing to the stage The Art of Fugue: an absolute masterpiece, left unfinished, which still today questions interpreters and listeners on the deepest meaning of form and musical writing. The Quartet offers an intense and coherent reading, enriched by unusual instruments such as the tenor viola and the recorder.
Incontri Asolani dedicates the evening of Tuesday 9 September to emerging talent with the recital of the winner of the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition, an international showcase for the best talents of world pianism. The festival thus confirms its attention to the great performers of the future, giving voice to young people who already stand out for their artistic personality and interpretative maturity.
Fifty years after the death of the great Russian composer, the Venice Quartet and pianist Maurizio Baglini, on Thursday, September 11 at 9 pm, are proposing a program entirely dedicated to Dmitry Šostakovich, with a program that explores his emotional depth and expressive power. The concert also includes Quartet No. 5 by Mieczysław Weinberg, a Polish-born composer and friend of Šostakovič, whose fate he shared as an artist under surveillance in the difficult Soviet context. An intense homage to an author who was able to tell, with lucid humanity, the drama of the twentieth century through music.
The festival closes on Friday 12 September at 9.00 pm with a second appointment of the cycle “Beethoven 198”. The program includes two of the most beloved symphonies in Beethoven’s catalogue, Symphony no. 1 in C major Op. 21 and Symphony no. 3 in E flat major, op. 55 “Heroic”, in the transcription for violin and piano by Hans Sitt. Mauro Loguercio on violin and Emanuela Piemonti on piano will create a close dialogue between the two instrumental voices, revealing the melodic and structural essence of these two cornerstones of symphonic literature.
All concerts are held in the Church of San Gottardo in Asolo (TV) at 9.00 pm.
Incontri Asolani XLVII International Chamber Music Festival on stage from 1 to 12 September 2025, promoted by Asolo Musica – Veneto Musica, every year brings some of the best musicians in Italy and the world to Asolo, is created with the patronage of the Ministry of Culture, Reteventi, the Municipality, the Department of Culture and the Parish of Asolo.
Asolo Musica thanks for the fundamental support of the Treviso-Belluno Dolomiti Chamber of Commerce, Bellussi Spumanti, CentroMarca Cooperative Credit Bank of Treviso and Venice and Caffè Hausbrandt.
