Concerts with works by

Eugène Ysaÿe

Chamber concert Kühlhaus Berlin

Chamber concert Ballhaus Wedding

Chamber concert: Violin Piano

»A very nice change!« This is how our concertmaster Bart Vandenbogaerde describes his performances as a soloist or in small ensembles. The Belgian showed an enormous musical talent from an early age and quickly fell in love with the violin. He has been playing in our orchestra since 2013 and, according to him, feels »very much at home« in Bamberg. In this chamber concert, he and pianist Margarita Höhenrieder will perform inspiring works that embody the spirit of late Romanticism and the fin de siècle. It begins with a stroke of genius by 23-year-old Richard Strauss: his only violin sonata was composed in 1887 and is a milestone full of sparkling tonal colours, which the Munich-born composer mastered so congenially. Gabriel Fauré was living in vibrant Paris at the time, where his opus 13 was premièred in 1877: The composition impresses with an energetic opening movement with original themes, a fantastic Andante in a swinging barcarole rhythm, an ethereal Scherzo and a whirling finale. The concluding pieces, which originate from the homeland of our concertmaster, are characterised by equally virtuoso upswings: Eugène Ysaÿe was a legendary violinist for whom a number of composers wrote pieces - and about whom it was said: »The birds sing, he plays the violin!« But the Belgian musician wrote impressive music himself, including the Mazurkas published in 1884: In these brilliant pieces, intimate music-making alternates with passionate eruptions. This will be an enchanting chamber concert, not least because Bart Vandenbogaerde plays the music on a very special instrument - a violin made by the famous Italian violin maker Guarneri del Gesù in 1742.

Violin Recital

Augustin Hadelich, photo: Suxiao_Yang Augustin Hadelich used the time of the Covid-19 pandemic to study solo works by Johann Sebastian Bach. He has the good fortune to play on a unique violin called ‘Leduc’, once owned by the famous virtuoso Henryk Szeryng and considered by some to be the last work of the Cremonese lutenist Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù. On this instrument, he recorded a two-CD album of Bach sonatas and partitas. Hadelich matched a copy of a Baroque bow to an eighteenth-century violin, but without completely abandoning the ‘modern’ aesthetic in which he grew up. Two Bach partitas will open and close his recital at the Warsaw Philharmonic, consisting of varied examples of solo violin music. In his Blue/s Forms, Coleridge Taylor Perkinson drew on intervals characteristic of blues and jazz that are lowered for expressive purposes (so-called blue notes). David Lang’s Mystery Sonatas, a cycle premiered in 2014 by Augustin Hadelich, is a conscious (albeit distant) reference to the famous work of the brilliant Baroque violinist Heinrich Ignaz Biber. As for Eugène Ysaÿe’s showstopping Sonata No. 3, dedicated to Romanian composer George Enescu, it ranks alongside Bach’s sonatas and partitas among the greatest and most popular challenges of the solo violin repertoire. The concert will take place in the Concert Hall, and not, as previously planned, in the Chamber Music Hall.

Jansen and Kozhukhin

With her dazzling technique and natural stage presence, Dutch violinist Janine Jansen has long been among the top tier of international star violinists. Pianist Denis Kozhukhin also combines outstanding technique with mature musicality and an ability to establish a close connection with the audience. They have both previously visited Konserhuset, individually and together.During their acclaimed visit in 2022, they performed, among other pieces, Brahms' third violin sonata. Now, we hear the first two: the "rain sonata," so named because its finale includes a quote from Brahms' own song "Regenlied," and the second, named "Thun" after the town in Switzerland where Brahms spent time when he composed it. There, he was inspired by the beautiful surroundings. "There are so many melodies here that one must be careful not to trample on any of them," he expressed it.Before Ravel's concluding violin sonata with its famous blues movement, we hear Eugène Ysaÿe's sensually dark-toned Poème élégiaque, a milestone in the violin repertoire, and Olivier Messiaen's Thème et variations, which in character resembles his most performed work, Quartet for the End of Time.

Chamber music but with symphonic flair

It is a rare opportunity to listen to an octet. This type of ensemble on the verge of chamber and orchestral music involving eight instruments has had a variety of instrumentations and patterns based on them. The reference point for the purely stringed ensemble cast is the octet written in 1825 by Felix Mendelssohn, who was only sixteen years old then. Following in his footsteps in 1900 was the nineteen-year-old George Enescu, who was by then already quite prolific as a composer, as he began making music as soon as he learned the notes at the age of five. As it turned out, he grew into the greatest Romanian composer and one of the most outstanding violinists of his era. Written in 1900, his String Octet in C major is an incredibly up-to-date work compared to the trends of the time as Enescu captured the difficult moment of Romanticism's transition into Modernism. Despite being divided into four movements, it is essentially a continuous piece with orchestral panache and rich expression. All of this makes it no worse than many symphonies! Adam SuprynowiczConcert duration: approximately 80 minutes