Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Festival

Budapest Festival Orchestra / Carl-Philipp-Emanuel-Bach-Chor / Iván Fischer

»Resurrect, yes resurrect, you will!« It is at the end of Mahler’s Second Symphony that the choir vocalises the religiously and philosophically motivated central message of the work with poignant optimism. Performances of the monumental »Resurrection Symphony« remain an impressive event to this day – not only in Hamburg of course, where the composer once had the inspiration for the choral finale in the »Michel« church. How fitting that the Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Choir, a Hamburg-based orchestra, should now be performing the finale. The manuscript of the work, which lasts around one and a half hours, was auctioned off several years ago for 5.3 million euros. Fortunately, the live experience of hearing the work is a little more affordable – and priceless at the same time. »Resurrect, yes resurrect, you will!« It is at the end of Mahler’s Second Symphony that the choir vocalises the religiously and philosophically motivated central message of the work with poignant optimism. Performances of the monumental »Resurrection Symphony« remain an impressive event to this day – not only in Hamburg of course, where the composer once had the inspiration for the choral finale in the »Michel« church. How fitting that the Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Choir, a Hamburg-based orchestra, should now be performing the finale. The manuscript of the work, which lasts around one and a half hours, was auctioned off several years ago for 5.3 million euros. Fortunately, the live experience of hearing the work is a little more affordable – and priceless at the same time.

Carl-Philipp-Emanuel-Bach-Chor Hamburg / Hansjörg Albrecht

»Jauchzet, frohlocket« – for many people, Christmas would be unthinkable without this familiar cry of joy. Bach knows like no other how to capture the words of Luke’s Gospel surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ in musical images. Originally, the various cantatas were spread over different days and were performed on the corresponding public holidays. Today, they are usually grouped together to create a large, coherent Christmas picture. With Johann Sebastian Bach’s incomparable music, this third Advent becomes a musical and aesthetic preparation for Christmas.

Symphoniker Hamburg / Carl-Philipp-Emanuel-Bach-Chor Hamburg / Pablo González

Performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Laeiszhalle at the turn of the year have long since become a popular tradition. The composer made music history with the fourth movement of the work, which was premiered around 200 years ago, as he introduced the use of vocal soloists and choir in a symphony that was unusually large in scope and was to change the genre forever. Schiller’s »Ode to Joy«, set to music in this work, conveys a vision of universal brotherhood and unity among all people that transcends national and cultural boundaries. Beethoven set the words to emotionally powerful music, which Berlioz praised as »unsurpassably great«, Mendelssohn complimented as »the highest a human being can achieve«, Wagner hailed as the »human gospel of the art of the future« and Tchaikovsky elicited the poignant judgement: »Beethoven’s Ninth is not only the greatest, but also the most human of all symphonies.«

Carl-Philipp-Emanuel-Bach-Chor Hamburg / Symphoniker Hamburg / Hansjörg Albrecht

»Could you give your orchestra a little longing for spring when you play it, because I had that with me when I wrote it. I would like the very first trumpet blast to sound as if from on high, like a call to awakening,« wrote Robert Schumann to the conductor Wilhelm Taubert about his First Symphony in B flat major, of which he once proudly proclaimed: »It was born in a fiery hour.« It was written in a true creative frenzy: the 31-year-old composer sketched it in just four days at the end of January 1841 and finished the entire score a good three weeks later, on 20 February. This early spring symphony by Robert Schumann forms the opening of this intoxicating evening, the second half of which features the famous Carmina Burana. Carl Orff became famous overnight in 1937 with the large-scale Carmina Burana. Contemporary harmonies and expressive melodies are combined here with elements of medieval music, powerful rhythms and an artful simplicity. Orff composed this work to Latin, Middle and Old High German songs that were found in 1803 in the Benediktbeuren monastery in Bavaria and are today among the most important literary testimonies of the Middle Ages. In three parts, the songs of Carmina Burana tell of love and courtship, of romance and mysticism, but above all of the cycle of life. To this day, the work is one of the most popular pieces of serious music of the 20th century.

Symphoniker Hamburg / Carl-Philipp-Emanuel-Bach-Chor Hamburg / Pablo González

Performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Laeiszhalle at the turn of the year have long since become a popular tradition. The composer made music history with the fourth movement of the work, which was premiered around 200 years ago, as he introduced the use of vocal soloists and choir in a symphony that was unusually large in scope and was to change the genre forever. Schiller’s »Ode to Joy«, set to music in this work, conveys a vision of universal brotherhood and unity among all people that transcends national and cultural boundaries. Beethoven set the words to emotionally powerful music, which Berlioz praised as »unsurpassably great«, Mendelssohn complimented as »the highest a human being can achieve«, Wagner hailed as the »human gospel of the art of the future« and Tchaikovsky elicited the poignant judgement: »Beethoven’s Ninth is not only the greatest, but also the most human of all symphonies.«

Carl-Philipp-Emanuel-Bach-Chor / Dresdner Festspielorchester / Hansjörg Albrecht

Bach, Bach, Bach ... Johann Sebastian Bach was a master of pastiche: he loved to reuse his own compositions in new contexts and to copy his pieces in order to demonstrate their flexibility and universality and to give them new expression. With the Lukas-Passion, we hear a work in precisely this pastiche manner. Bach never managed to finish writing this Passion. Now the Bach specialists Lorenz and Christoph Eglhuber, together with the renowned conductor Hansjörg Albrecht, have gone into Bach’s copying and composing room to write this missing Passion from his own compositions. The result is a highly exciting, dramatic work – from pieces written by Bach himself. The Carl-Philipp-Emanuel-Bach-Chor Hamburg brings it to the stage with the finest cast. The soloists are all absolute Bach experts. The Dresdner Festspielorchester is an orchestra made up of members of top-class ensembles of period performance practice. The audience can expect a festive baroque concert in the Passion season!

Carl-Philipp-Emanuel-Bach-Chor Hamburg / NDR Barock / Hansjörg Albrecht

Born the son of a violonist, Antonio Vivaldi received violin lessons at an early age. In 1703, at the age of 25, he became a music teacher at the »Ospedale della Pietà«, an orphanage for young girls. There he gave his pupils music lessons every day from an early age. As a result, most of the girls were able to play two or three instruments and were also familiar with solo singing. Vivaldi remained at the school until 1716, where he not only taught, but also composed concertos and oratorios for the weekly performances. The orchestra of the Ospedale soon gained a legendary reputation that extended beyond the country’s borders and attracted numerous travellers to Italy. »The most remarkable music here in Venice is that of the hospitals,« reported the French scholar Charles de Brosses in a letter dated August 1739. »There are four of them, all inhabited by illegitimate daughters or orphan girls, or those whom their parents are unable to bring up. They are brought up at the expense of the state, and are trained to excel in music. They sing like angels and play the violin, flute, organ, oboe, violoncello, in short, no instrument is so big that it would frighten them. They live in seclusion like nuns. About 40 of them take part in every concert. I assure you, there is nothing more attractive than the sight of a pretty young nun, in a white habit and with a bunch of pomegranates behind her ear, conducting an orchestra and beating time with the greatest grace and precision.« The eroticising effect of such women’s concerts can also be seen in the fact that a not inconsiderable number of male concertgoers use these events to look for a bride...

Carl-Philipp-Emanuel-Bach-Chor Hamburg / Concerto Köln / Hansjörg Albrecht

The opening concert of this year’s International Bach Festival Hamburg will feature Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Passion cantata »Die letzten Leiden des Erlösers«, written for Hamburg, performed in the Laeiszhalle by the ensemble Concerto Köln, which specialises in historical performance practice, and the Carl-Philipp-Emanuel-Bach-Choir. Together with the final concert on Easter Sunday, it forms the thematic arc of this Bach festival centred on the Passion and Resurrection.

Carl-Philipp-Emanuel-Bach-Chor Hamburg / Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin / Hansjörg Albrecht

The Magnificat by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, in which Mary expresses her love for God, but in which Mary is also celebrated as the epitome of love among mankind, forms the jubilant prelude to the final concert of this year’s International Bach Festival Hamburg with its youthful fire. In this concert, father and son face each other. Can the younger one stand up to the comparison with the older one? Can the son emancipate himself from the father with whom he was trained and learnt? The performers for this musical comparison are the Carl-Philipp-Emanuel-Bach-Choir Hamburg, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and Hansjörg Albrecht.

Bach "Christmas Oratorio"