Mozart’s lost work to be performed in Turkey

ISTANBUL

AA photo

The seventh International Şefika Kutluer Festival, organized under the name of internationally acclaimed Turkish flutist Şefika Kutluer, known as the Magic Flute, will be held from Dec. 2 to 20 in Istanbul and Ankara.

On Dec. 2, at the opening concert of the festival in Istanbul, Austria’s Tutti Mozart Orchestra, under the baton of Vinicius Kattah, will accompany Şefika Kutluer in a Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart program.

Mozart’s “Wendling Flute Concerto,” which had been kept concealed for 239 years, will be performed by Şefika Kutluer and the orchestra for the first time in the world as part of the program. 

The concerto was found in a library in Switzerland and has not been recorded so far. 

The first concert will be held at Istanbul’s Zorlu Center PSM on Dec. 2 and performed on Dec. 4 at the Nazım Hikmet Concert Hall in Ankara. 

Speaking to state-run Anadolu Agency, Şefika Kutluer said that when Mozart was broke at the age of 21, he stayed with his mother in the house of flutist Johann Baptist Wendling, who helped him compose new pieces. 

She said the work had been on dusty shelves for 239 years. “The work is considered lost in the literature. The Tutti Mozart Orchestra had been searching for this concerto for a long time. Kattah worked like a detective, searching for all letters written by Mozart and his mother to his father.”

Şefika Kutluer said the concert had not been performed for many years. “It has been in a library in Switzerland under the name ‘Wendling Flute Concerto’ and has never been performed. But the letter Mozart wrote to his father was discovered recently, and the work was understood to have been composed by Mozart. I am proud to be performing this work.”

The organizer of the festival, Refik Kutluer, said the concerto would contribute to Turkey’s promotion as it would be performed for the first time in the country. 

“World premieres are very important in the classical music world. This is a Mozart concert and it is more important,” he said. 

The first CD of the work, featuring Şefika Kutluer and the Tutti Mozart Orchestra with Kattah, will be released at the beginning of 2017. 


Magic Flute Kutluer 

Şefika Kutluer studied at the Ankara State Conservatory and graduated in 1979 before embarking on a successful soloist career in Vienna and Rome. She taught at the Ankara Conservatory for several years. 

She has a large repertoire extending from the Baroque to the Romantic period and from mystical music to crossover works from East and West. Şefika Kutluer has released 17 albums recorded with orchestras along with piano and guitar accompaniments, including recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic and the British Royal Philharmonic orchestras. 

Her “Bach Sonatas” CD was chosen as one of the best CDs of the year by the reviewers of the American Record Guide in 2002. 

Şefika Kutluer is also the flute soloist at the İzmir State Symphony Orchestra and a future permanent soloist at the European Union Chamber Orchestra.