Feldman!
Date & Time
Wed, Jun 18, 2025, 19:30Keywords: Contemporary
Musicians
Ralf Mielke | Flute |
Stefan Stopora | Drums |
Steffen Schleiermacher | Piano, Moderator |
Program
Crippled Symmetry | Morton Feldman |
Keywords: Contemporary
Ralf Mielke | Flute |
Stefan Stopora | Drums |
Steffen Schleiermacher | Piano, Moderator |
Crippled Symmetry | Morton Feldman |
These events are similar in terms of concept, place, musicians or the program.
The Russian composer Vladimir Tarnopolski is certainly no stranger to contemporary music. His works have been performed at many major festivals over recent decades. He has received various prizes and released many of his works on CD. As a professor of composition at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, he has also passed on his knowledge to a whole generation of young composers. »Im Dunkel vor der Dämmerung« (»In the Dark before Dawn«) is the title of a new work commissioned by the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra and premiered in this concert. »Sinfonia Eroica« was the title Ludwig van Beethoven gave his third symphony in 1804, a »heroic symphony composed to celebrate the memory of a great man«. Whether or not this »great man« was to be little Napoleon? At first it was, in all likelihood. But Beethoven probably decided to leave out any corresponding dedication, since the Corsican’s personal coronation as emperor was, in the composer’s eyes, a bitter betrayal of the republican ideas of the French Enlightenment. Was Beethoven himself perhaps the hero? An innovator in the context of music history? Whatever the answer, he certainly breaks new ground with his »Eroica«.
The Russian composer Vladimir Tarnopolski is certainly no stranger to contemporary music. His works have been performed at many major festivals over recent decades. He has received various prizes and released many of his works on CD. As a professor of composition at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, he has also passed on his knowledge to a whole generation of young composers. »Im Dunkel vor der Dämmerung« (»In the Dark before Dawn«) is the title of a new work commissioned by the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra and premiered in this concert. »Sinfonia Eroica« was the title Ludwig van Beethoven gave his third symphony in 1804, a »heroic symphony composed to celebrate the memory of a great man«. Whether or not this »great man« was to be little Napoleon? At first it was, in all likelihood. But Beethoven probably decided to leave out any corresponding dedication, since the Corsican’s personal coronation as emperor was, in the composer’s eyes, a bitter betrayal of the republican ideas of the French Enlightenment. Was Beethoven himself perhaps the hero? An innovator in the context of music history? Whatever the answer, he certainly breaks new ground with his »Eroica«.
Born in Teheran, Sara Abazari is one of today’s leading voices in her country’s contemporary music. Her two latest compositions, which were recently premiered in the Berlin Philharmonie and the Konzerthaus, are directly connected with the movement »Woman, Life, Freedom« and the prominent role of women in Iran. »in solidum« is a piece that was premiered in its first version in autumn 2023; the new, large-scale orchestral work by the composer, who studied in Cologne and Vienna, is now being performed by the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra. With Galina Ustwolskaja (1919-2006), the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra preesents one of the 20th century’s most uncompromising composers after the interval. Ms Ustwolskaja gained a reputation for her visionary and always highly unusual combinations of instruments: »Dies irae« is scored for eight double basses, piano and a large, resonant wooden block, which the percussionist beats with enigmatic hammer blows. Performances of the work produce the picture, precisely calculated by the composer, of an archaic ritual that evokes a set of metaphors between death, protest and apotheosis: this is a »breakthrough piece«, a musical onslaught on all conventional boundaries, and indisputably Ustwolskaja’s most famous work. The evening opens with Edgar Varèse’s virtuoso piece »Intégrales« for wind instruments and percussion, one of the founding documents of 20th century music. Written for the avant-garde »International Composers’ Guild«, which was founded in 1921 by Carlos Salzedo and Varèse himself, »Intégrales« was given its first performance in March 1925 in New York’s Aeolian Hall.
Ingo Metzmacher is one of the great explorers among conductors. He tirelessly explores new and little-known areas of the repertoire. His curiosity already characterised him during his time as General Music Director in Hamburg between 1997 and 2005. And this also characterises the vocal symphonic programme with which he returns to the podium of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in November. One day before his 67th birthday, Metzmacher conducts two rarely performed works by two jubilarians from the Romantic and modern eras with a round birthday in 2024 – and fills the stage in the Grand Hall with an opulent line-up that, alongside the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, includes the MDR-Rundfunkchor and nine vocal soloists.
As part of the »Elbphilharmonie Visions« festival, the NDR Radiophilharmonie and conductor Pierre Bleuse present a work by Italian composer Clara Iannotta, who continues to explore the boundaries between noise and composition, as well as Arnulf Herrmann’s »Tour de Trance« for soprano and orchestra. As at the latter’s world premiere, the solo part will be performed by opera singer Anja Petersen.
The South African cellist and composer Abel Selaocoe has an irrepressible energy and stage presence that has propelled him from a township near Johannesburg to the top of the music world. Together with London’s Aurora Orchestra, whose Elbphilharmonie debut was hailed by the press as a »boldly creative orchestra« with »extravagantly sparkling interpretation«, an explosive evening is guaranteed. Selaocoe transcends genre boundaries with ease in his Cello Concerto. He combines Western music from classical to soul with the sounds and traditions of his homeland – including intense, throaty singing, which plays just as big a role in the concerto as the cello does. In the second half of the concert, the Aurora Orchestra presents its trademark: a major symphonic work, played entirely from memory without sheet music. Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, which the composer himself described as a »sheer expression of joy, happiness and the affirmation of life«, should be a perfect fit for the enthusiastic young orchestra.
Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä doesn’t take up his post as chief conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra until 2027, but he is already working closely with the orchestra. At this concert, they perform Robert Schumann’s Fourth Symphony and Sofia Gubaidulina’s First Violin Concerto. The concert opens with a new piece by South Korean composer Seung Won-Oh. In 2023 Gubaidulina (*1931) was named the most frequently performed composer in the world by the online magazine Bachtrack. She experienced her international breakthrough in the 1980s with her Violin Concerto No. 1 »Offertorium«, in which she echoes Johann Sebastian Bach’s »Musical Offering«, her choice of title already pointing to a deep religious sense. Once premiered by master violinist Gidon Kremer, the renowned Austrian violinist Julian Rachlin has now been recruited for the solo part. Schumann’s Fourth Symphony was a birthday present for his beloved Clara and an affair of the heart for the composer. The recipient, herself a pianist and composer, was deeply moved by the symphony: »This is another work produced from the depths of the soul«.
»I want interaction. I want people to feel something. I want them to ask questions,« explained Elim Chan in an interview. The Hong Kong-born conductor is currently one of the most sought-after musicians of her generation. The Vienna Musikverein dedicated a three-part portrait series to her in the 2022/23 season. And after Elim Chan’s debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2022, the press wrote euphorically of a »miracle of control and understanding«. In this concert, Elim Chan has a musician at her side who is one of only two living cellists to have been inducted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame and who continues to captivate audiences with his unique musicianship: Steven Isserlis. He plays Joseph Haydn’s long-lost Cello Concerto in C major, in which late Baroque solemnity is combined with the virtuosity of Viennese Classicism. The elegant lightness of the concerto conceals highly demanding passages that require a great deal of dexterity from the soloist.
The premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s ballet »Le sacre du printemps« in Paris in 1913 was one of the biggest scandals in music history: the radically modern choreography and music prompted the audience to heckle, whistle and even start scuffles. But today, »The Rite of Spring« regularly receives standing ovations for its gripping rhythms and dramatic intensity. As Germany’s national orchestra of music college students, the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie under the baton of Roderick Cox has the talent and youthful vigour to perform Stravinsky’s masterpiece to perfection. »Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres)« by US composer Missy Mazzoli orbits like a planet in the solar system. Compound rhythms and stylised Baroque ornaments become intertwining passages. »The piece is stirring and agitated at the same time,« says the composer. While »Sinfonia« in Mazolli’s title refers to the Baroque elements in the score, for Luciano Berio, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday in 2025, it refers to the origin of the word – harmony. In Berio’s »Sinfonia« for orchestra and eight voices, the orchestra joins forces with the renowned voices of the RIAS Kammerchor to present exciting music full of quotes from Samuel Beckett to Gustav Mahler.
»I want interaction. I want people to feel something. I want them to ask questions,« explained Elim Chan in an interview. The Hong Kong-born conductor is currently one of the most sought-after musicians of her generation. The Vienna Musikverein dedicated a three-part portrait series to her in the 2022/23 season. And after Elim Chan’s debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2022, the press wrote euphorically of a »miracle of control and understanding«. In this concert, Elim Chan has a musician at her side who is one of only two living cellists to have been inducted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame and who continues to captivate audiences with his unique musicianship: Steven Isserlis. He plays Joseph Haydn’s long-lost Cello Concerto in C major, in which late Baroque solemnity is combined with the virtuosity of Viennese Classicism. The elegant lightness of the concerto conceals highly demanding passages that require a great deal of dexterity from the soloist.