| Choralspace Festival Choir | Choir |
| Ensemble Crescere | Ensemble |
| Donka Miteva | Conductor |
| Vinzenz Weissenburger | Conductor |
| Matteo Valbusa | Conductor |
| Anthony Blake Clark | Conductor |
| Nabucco | Giuseppe Verdi |
| Macbeth | Giuseppe Verdi |
| Lohengrin | Richard Wagner |
| Die Fledermaus | Johann Strauss II |
These events are similar in terms of concept, place, musicians or the program.
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“Complete at last the glorious work!” Something akin to these words from Haydn’s “Creation” surely went through the minds of many musicians and concertgoers when they first set foot in the Elbphilharmonie. We have been regular guests at this stunning concert hall ever since it opened in 2017. This season, our orchestra will perform here on two consecutive nights, playing some of the core repertoire featured on our recent internationally acclaimed recordings – superb symphonies by two musician friends who inspired one another: Johannes Brahms, who was born in Hamburg, and Antonín Dvořák, a native of our Bohemian home.
“Complete at last the glorious work!” Something akin to these words from Haydn’s “Creation” surely went through the minds of many musicians and concertgoers when they first set foot in the Elbphilharmonie. We have been regular guests at this stunning concert hall ever since it opened in 2017. This season, our orchestra will perform here on two consecutive nights, playing some of the core repertoire featured on our recent internationally acclaimed recordings – superb symphonies by two musician friends who inspired one another: Johannes Brahms, who was born in Hamburg, and Antonín Dvořák, a native of our Bohemian home.
»I love the opera!« – says clarinettist and Hamburg resident Sabine Grofmeier. With this Hamburg serenade concert, she wants to share her love and passion for this unique genre with her audience. Guest artists on stage will be tenor Mehrzad Montazeri and pianist Marina Komissartchik, who also lives in Hamburg. Fantastic arias for clarinet, tenor and piano will be performed, newly arranged by and with clarinettist Sabine Grofmeier and accompanied on the piano by Marina Komissartchik as a chamber music trio.
"Women, you angels of the earth! Heaven's loveliest creation! You are the sole ray that illuminates our lives." (Alphonse de Lamartine) We start with the meaning-laden Adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony, inspired in 1901 by his blossoming love for his future wife Alma. A musical marriage proposal with strings and harp, it is a beguilingly beautiful work, albeit shot through with hauntingly world-weary and nostalgic tones. Like many great composers, Richard Strauss had a strong woman at his side – the singer Pauline, for whom he composed many of his vocal works. His lush "Four Last Songs" strike a tone of farewell. These settings of texts by Hesse and Eichendorff were written in 1948, when Strauss’ world had been shattered by the war and he was growing “weary of wandering”, to quote the final line of the last song. While profound grief can often stifle creativity, it sometimes can also awaken new creative energies – as proven by our programme’s emotional final piece, a "work of superhuman strength" written by Josef Suk, who had close personal ties with Dvořák. He became not only the latter’s master student, but also his friend and son-in-law as well, falling in love with Dvořák’s daughter Otylka. But this happiness was abruptly destroyed by Dvořák’s demise in 1904 and the tragically early death of Otylka a mere fourteen months later. Suk wrote the moving symphony "Asrael" to overcome this trauma and in memory of his loved ones, saying: "Such misfortune either destroys a person or brings all the forces lying dormant in them to the surface. Music saved me."
»Music is love‘s soul, for it is the touching of the divine with the human.« These were the thoughts of Bettina von Arnim – and in our concert conducted by Andrew Manze we indulge in such deep soundscapes as Respighi‘s »Concerto Gregoriano« from 1921: it conjures up a religiously solemn world of the middle ages – inspired by his preoccupation with the honorable church modes and meditative melodies of Gregorian chant, which had seized him »like an addiction« at the time. The violin concerto is therefore largely a lyrical-contemplative composition and quotes the Easter sequence »victimae paschali laudes« in the middle movement – but in the end it soars hymn-like with echoes of the famous »Salve Regina« chant like a fervent profession of faith. One critic characterised the violin part as that of »a cantor in an ancient religious ceremony, with the orchestra personifying the choir of the believers«. With us, Frank Peter Zimmermann will assume the role of solo choir leader with his Stradivarius. What follows is a journey into the Bruckner cosmos: his creative work was inseparably intertwined with religious sentiments, which earned him the nickname »Musician of God«. Before he had dared to approach symphonies, he had already made a name for himself as an eminent organist and church composer. After several dissatisfactory attempts, he composed his first definitive symphony in Linz in 1865/66 – which, however, he reworked in Vienna in 1891 on the basis of the experience he had gathered thereafter: it captivates the listener with its natural originality, grandiose themes and climax after climax – and in addition offers deep insights into Bruckner‘s state of mind in the heartfelt Adagio.
In our guest appearance in Augsburg conducted by the internationally sought-after conductor Gemma New, we begin with an earworm piece by Rossini, who once remarked: »What love is to the soul, appetite is to the body«. After having written 39 operas, the Italian retired from his musical career at just 37 years of age, choosing to devote himself to indulgent idleness as a hedonist and to the composition of culinary creations. The opera »Wilhelm Tell«, based on the play of the same name by Schiller, was composed in 1829 as his last dramatic work and is a story about love, patriotism and the desire for freedom – together with the legendary apple shot. We then welcome Sebastian Knauer as soloist for the glittering »Rhapsody in Blue« by Gershwin, who put the quintessence of his composing in a nutshell in these words: »In music, only one thing matters: ideas plus feeling!« In 1924, he wrote his popular piano concerto in the style of symphonic jazz: swing themes, sparkling rhythms and blues elements pop up in a loose fitting and paint a picture of his homeland’s soul. Gershwin called it a »musical kaleidoscope of America – our enormous melting pot, our typical quirks«. We conclude with a famous masterpiece by Beethoven, who once said of his inner creative urge: »What’s on my mind must come out, and that's why I compose.« In his Fifth Symphony from 1808, everything revolves around overcoming an almost overpowering fate and the music takes »its listeners into spirit realms«, where Beethoven appears as the »unrestricted sovereign over the spaces of the souls« – that is how the admiring E.T.A. Hoffmann perceived it.
»Music is love‘s soul, for it is the touching of the divine with the human.« These were the thoughts of Bettina von Arnim – and in our concert conducted by Andrew Manze we indulge in such deep soundscapes as Respighi‘s »Concerto Gregoriano« from 1921: it conjures up a religiously solemn world of the middle ages – inspired by his preoccupation with the honorable church modes and meditative melodies of Gregorian chant, which had seized him »like an addiction« at the time. The violin concerto is therefore largely a lyrical-contemplative composition and quotes the Easter sequence »victimae paschali laudes« in the middle movement – but in the end it soars hymn-like with echoes of the famous »Salve Regina« chant like a fervent profession of faith. One critic characterised the violin part as that of »a cantor in an ancient religious ceremony, with the orchestra personifying the choir of the believers«. With us, Frank Peter Zimmermann will assume the role of solo choir leader with his Stradivarius. What follows is a journey into the Bruckner cosmos: his creative work was inseparably intertwined with religious sentiments, which earned him the nickname »Musician of God«. Before he had dared to approach symphonies, he had already made a name for himself as an eminent organist and church composer. After several dissatisfactory attempts, he composed his first definitive symphony in Linz in 1865/66 – which, however, he reworked in Vienna in 1891 on the basis of the experience he had gathered thereafter: it captivates the listener with its natural originality, grandiose themes and climax after climax – and in addition offers deep insights into Bruckner‘s state of mind in the heartfelt Adagio.
»O Beethoven! You are the greatest and best friend of those who suffer, of those who struggle. When the misery of the whole world overpowers us, you move close to us, as you did to a grieving mother, sitting wordlessly at the piano offering comfort to the weeping.« In these words, a contemporary described the effect Beethoven‘s music can have on troubled souls. We play his B-flat major concerto, which earned »the undivided approval of the audience« already in 1795: it has many lively passages – but the heart of the piece is the Adagio, in which an emotional dialogue between solo instrument and orchestra unfolds. We are delighted that the legendary pianist Mitsuko Uchida will once again join us for one of Beethoven‘s famous concertos. Before that, the overture from Cherubini‘s opera »Medea«, first performed in 1797, will be played – a soul drama revolving around a Greek tragedian figure whose ruptured emotional world between love and hate is the main subject. The composition does have lyrical interludes, but is otherwise characterised by unbridled passion. Stravinsky‘s »Le Sacre du printemps« also impressively shows the maelstrom that music can develop and thereby intensively touch the soul: It is a pagan story about the »yearly cycle of forces that are reborn and fall back into the womb of nature« – represented by blessings of the earth, ritual dances and an offering to the gods. At its premiere as a ballet, the composition caused a genuine scandal, but after its first concert performance, the music was quickly recognised for its magic – it captivates with a primal rhythmic power that, according to Stravinsky, »seizes every sensitive spirit«.
Aida – Rigoletto – La Bohème – Gianni Schicchi – La traviata and other operas
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