![Roberto Molinelli](https://interlude-cdn-blob-prod.azureedge.net/interlude-blob-storage-prod/2020/09/Robert-Molinelli.jpg)
Roberto Molinelli
How to you show the various facets of a great and complex city? In his Four Pictures from New York, composer Roberto Molinelli takes a range across a day, with a focus on the inherent music of the city.
The Italian composer wrote his tribute to the city as it ‘appears in the eyes of a European in love with America, American music, and culture.’ It’s not New York as a New Yorker would write it, but New York with an Italian touch.
![Sunrise and the Empire State Building](https://interlude-cdn-blob-prod.azureedge.net/interlude-blob-storage-prod/2020/09/Sunrise-and-the-Empire-State-Building.jpg)
Sunrise and the Empire State Building
The first movement, Dreamy Dawn, gives us a radiant and clear sunrise, but one that is filtered through the skyscrapers of the city.
Molinelli: Four Pictures from New York: No. 1. Dreamy Dawn (Federico Mondelci, saxophone; Basinia Shulman, piano; Dmitry Ilugdin, piano; Moscow Chamber Orchestra; Constantine Orbelian, cond.)
And then, as a proper tourist does, you go to sleep and come out again in the early evening. Our composer takes us to a Tango Club, where he summons up the spirit of Astor Piazzolla, Argentine in soul but New Yorker in habitation.
Molinelli: Four Pictures from New York: No. 2. Tango Club (Federico Mondelci, saxophone; Basinia Shulman, piano; Dmitry Ilugdin, piano; Moscow Chamber Orchestra; Constantine Orbelian, cond.)
![Jazz Sax](https://interlude-cdn-blob-prod.azureedge.net/interlude-blob-storage-prod/2020/09/Jazz-Sax.jpg)
Jazz Sax
The lush jazz ensemble appears next, with the sax against an accompaniment of piano, double bass, and drums. It seems like it’s the winding down of a day in the big city.
Molinelli: Four Pictures from New York: No. 3. Sentimental Evening (Federico Mondelci, saxophone; Basinia Shulman, piano; Dmitry Ilugdin, piano; Moscow Chamber Orchestra; Constantine Orbelian, cond.)
![Broadway Theatre, New York](https://interlude-cdn-blob-prod.azureedge.net/interlude-blob-storage-prod/2020/09/Broadway.jpg)
Broadway Theatre, New York
But then you step out onto the street and life becomes exciting again – it’s as though you’ve stepped into a Broadway film – the lights, the dazzle, the glitter – and you’re in Times Square with the traffic, people hurrying by, and the city around you in all its glory.
Molinelli: Four Pictures from New York: No. 4. Broadway Night (Federico Mondelci, saxophone; Basinia Shulman, piano; Dmitry Ilugdin, piano; Moscow Chamber Orchestra; Constantine Orbelian, cond.)
![Central Park, at Dark, photo by Michael Massaia](https://interlude-cdn-blob-prod.azureedge.net/interlude-blob-storage-prod/2020/09/Central-Park.jpg)
Central Park, at Dark (photo by Michael Massaia)
In many ways, this is a visitor’s view of New York – none of the quiet intimacies of the neighbourhoods, of the pathways through Central Park appear here. In contrast with a true New Yorker’s take on the city, in a work such as Charles Ives’ Central Park in the Dark, where he’s not afraid of the dark corners of the city and the bright lights, Molinelli’s truly is a tourist’s take on the city.
Ives: Central Park in the Dark (New York Philharmonic; Seiji Ozawa, cond.)