Cancelled: Johanna Vargas & Patricia Kopatchinskaja

CANCELLED: Patricia Kelly

Due to illness this event has had to be cancelled – it will not be rescheduled on an alternative date. Under the following link you can find information about ticket price refunds: Information on refunds

Patricia Kopatchinskaja plays Luca Francesconi

»You must offer something good to the body so that the soul wants to live in it.« This quote became famous through Winston Churchill – but it originally originated from a Spanish mystic of the 16th century. Fittingly, we play an exciting violin concerto entitled »Corpo Elettrico« from Italian composer Luca Francesconi, born in 1956. The piece revolves around magical metamorphoses of energy processes: It all starts harmlessly at first, but as it progresses, the violin part, which at some point resembles a machine and becomes very explosive, sounds like a guitar solo by Jimi Hendrix. A tour de force with electronics and megaphones as well as an unbelievable pull – written for Patricia Kopatchinskaja in 2020, who continuously shakes up the classical music business with her uncompromising artistic attitude and once said: »When I play, I have to have something to say. It has to come from my whole body and soul.« The sound fireworks keep going after this – with Beethoven‘s most passionate symphony. His Seventh was given numerous programmatic interpretations in literature, which definitely associated material delights: they range from a wedding celebration and a knight‘s festival to the depiction of an »ancient wine feast«, with the finale heard as a »drinking binge«. Beethoven completed the symphony in 1812 – the year in which he also wrote his desperate letter to the »immortal beloved«, which for him meant the final renunciation of personal happiness in love. Nevertheless, he accomplished an optimistic work with his Seventh, because it was clear to him: »Music should strike fire from the human soul«.

Patricia Kopatchinskaja mit Schostakowitsch und Ligeti

CANCELLED: Mischa Maisky

This concert has been cancelled due to illness. Tickets can be refunded at point of purchase. 40 years ago, Mischa Maisky recorded the six solo suites for cello by Johann Sebastian Bach – a legendary recording. »Bach was the greatest Romantic of his time, and on many different levels.« With these words, cellist Mischa Maisky describes his approach to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach not only wrote the greatest amount of remarkable music in the history of music, he was also a father and was therefore at the centre of life. Maisky’s gripping, emotionally charged interpretation of the Thomaskantor’s music is based on this understanding, making it certainly one of, if not the central work in Maisky’s concert repertoire. With a mischievous smile, he declaims: »If I say that music is my religion, then these six solo suites are my bible.« Who is still surprised that Maisky’s cello suites are an absolute hit on YouTube? The first suite currently has over 58 million views, a figure that dwarfs anything comparable. But contact with the audience has always been the most important thing for Maisky. Performing the complete Bach suites is one of the most strenuous tasks as a soloist: »They are undoubtedly the greatest challenge. And the most beautiful when they succeed.« However, he is never interested in showing how well he can play. »I will never be the best cellist, but I could certainly play more precisely and clearly if I concentrated on that.« But then something else that is more essential to him would be lost: »Expressiveness. That’s more important to me than perfection.«

CANCELLED: Mischa Maisky

This concert has been cancelled due to illness. Tickets can be refunded at point of purchase. 40 years ago, Mischa Maisky recorded the six solo suites for cello by Johann Sebastian Bach – a legendary recording. »Bach was the greatest Romantic of his time, and on many different levels.« With these words, cellist Mischa Maisky describes his approach to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach not only wrote the greatest amount of remarkable music in the history of music, he was also a father and was therefore at the centre of life. Maisky’s gripping, emotionally charged interpretation of the Thomaskantor’s music is based on this understanding, making it certainly one of, if not the central work in Maisky’s concert repertoire. With a mischievous smile, he declaims: »If I say that music is my religion, then these six solo suites are my bible.« Who is still surprised that Maisky’s cello suites are an absolute hit on YouTube? The first suite currently has over 58 million views, a figure that dwarfs anything comparable. But contact with the audience has always been the most important thing for Maisky. Performing the complete Bach suites is one of the most strenuous tasks as a soloist: »They are undoubtedly the greatest challenge. And the most beautiful when they succeed.« However, he is never interested in showing how well he can play. »I will never be the best cellist, but I could certainly play more precisely and clearly if I concentrated on that.« But then something else that is more essential to him would be lost: »Expressiveness. That’s more important to me than perfection.«

The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen / Patricia Kopatchinskaja / Pekka Kuusisto

The orchestra as a powerhouse – with its virtuosity and joy of playing, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen creates electrifying concert experiences. For their first Elbphilharmonie concert of the season, Pekka Kuusisto can demonstrate his talent on the rostrum and, with music by Samuel Barber and Sergei Prokofiev, tease out late romantic pathos and edgy drama from the members of the Kammerphilharmonie. Exceptional violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja can again illustrate on Arnold Schönberg’s violin concerto that classifications such as unplayability have no meaning for her. With Samuel Barber’s »Adagio«, the programme begins with a piece that explores the sound of a full string orchestra in its entire depth. After this melancholic curtain-raiser, a work takes to the stage whose complexities have certainly made some musicians get their fingers in knots. To breathe life into the demanding lines and figurations of Arnold Schönberg’s violin concerto calls for an artist of Kopatchinskaja’s calibre. She combines supreme technique with perfect versatility and musical imagination. After the interval, Kuusisto then plunges into the existential drama of Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet music of »Romeo and Juliet« with the Kammerphilharmonie. Captivating melodies, brilliant orchestration, snappy rhythms and devastating tragedy – with these ingredients, Prokofiev portrayed the greatest love story of all time and in so doing created one of his most popular works.

Johanna Vargas / Ilya Gringolts

»Once I broke my leg, it was the best experience of my life« – such sentences that make you smile and are yet extremely serious are to be found in the heaps of diaries and letters left behind by Franz Kafka. The Hungarian composer György Kurtág set 40 of such fragments to music in 1985 for a cycle for soprano and violin – a really intimate line-up, which has found two acclaimed interpreters of contemporary music in Johanna Vargas and Ilya Gringolts in this concert. »It is a fantastic economy: singing with a single violin and how this instrument is used technically and expressively,« this is how Kurtág’s friend and composer colleague György Ligeti once described it. Simply poignant to your ears, the »Kafka Fragments« are nevertheless a heavyweight of music’s modern age, an immense challenge to the musicians which demands everything of them – in expression, virtuosity and sensitivity.

CANCELLED: Confessions

This event has had to be cancelled – it will not be rescheduled on an alternative date. Under the following link you can request a refund of your ticket price: Information on tickets refunds

CANCELLED: Ensemble der Neuen Philharmonie Hamburg / Armine Nersisjan / Hendrik Lücke

This event has been cancelled: Information on tickets refunds

CANCELLED: Ilja Richter

This event has had to be cancelled – it will not be rescheduled on an alternative date. Under the following link you can find information about ticket price refunds: Information on refunds