Jörg Widmann conducts Korngold and Mozart

Jörg Widmann conducts Mozart & Widmann

Simon Rattle conducts Bruckner and Widmann

Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony has long been one of the composer’s underrated works. According to Sir Simon Rattle, this is because it doesn’t offer what people usually expect of a Bruckner symphony. It is shorter, more transparent and less solemn than usual, “a piece full of humour and daring”. Bruckner himself seems to have seen it that way, for he whimsically declared the Sixth to be his “boldest”. To open the programme, Simon Rattle conducts the world premiere of a horn concerto written by Jörg Widmann, this season’s Composer-in-Residence, for our principal horn-player Stefan Dohr.

Simon Rattle conducts Bruckner and Widmann

Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony has long been one of the composer’s underrated works. According to Sir Simon Rattle, this is because it doesn’t offer what people usually expect of a Bruckner symphony. It is shorter, more transparent and less solemn than usual, “a piece full of humour and daring”. Bruckner himself seems to have seen it that way, for he whimsically declared the Sixth to be his “boldest”. To open the programme, Simon Rattle conducts the world premiere of a horn concerto written by Jörg Widmann, this season’s Composer-in-Residence, for our principal horn-player Stefan Dohr.

Simon Rattle conducts Bruckner and Widmann

Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony has long been one of the composer’s underrated works. According to Sir Simon Rattle, this is because it doesn’t offer what people usually expect of a Bruckner symphony. It is shorter, more transparent and less solemn than usual, “a piece full of humour and daring”. Bruckner himself seems to have seen it that way, for he whimsically declared the Sixth to be his “boldest”. To open the programme, Simon Rattle conducts the world premiere of a horn concerto written by Jörg Widmann, this season’s Composer-in-Residence, for our principal horn-player Stefan Dohr.

Giovanni Antonini conducts Mozart and Haydn

Few people are as passionate about the music of Joseph Haydn as Giovanni Antonini. He is currently in the process of recording all 107 of the composer’s symphonies – with a fresh, arresting approach. In this concert, we hear two symphonies of captivating originality and inspiration. Also on the programme are the cantata Arianna a Naxos, a touching emotional drama of an abandoned woman featuring Egyptian soprano Fatma Said, and Mozart’s little-known incidental music Thamos, King in Egypt, which is impressive in its dramatic power.

Giovanni Antonini conducts Mozart and Haydn

Few people are as passionate about the music of Joseph Haydn as Giovanni Antonini. He is currently in the process of recording all 107 of the composer’s symphonies – with a fresh, arresting approach. In this concert, we hear two symphonies of captivating originality and inspiration. Also on the programme are the cantata Arianna a Naxos, a touching emotional drama of an abandoned woman featuring Egyptian soprano Fatma Said, and Mozart’s little-known incidental music Thamos, King in Egypt, which is impressive in its dramatic power.

Giovanni Antonini conducts Mozart and Haydn

Few people are as passionate about the music of Joseph Haydn as Giovanni Antonini. He is currently in the process of recording all 107 of the composer’s symphonies – with a fresh, arresting approach. In this concert, we hear two symphonies of captivating originality and inspiration. Also on the programme are the cantata Arianna a Naxos, a touching emotional drama of an abandoned woman featuring Egyptian soprano Fatma Said, and Mozart’s little-known incidental music Thamos, King in Egypt, which is impressive in its dramatic power.

Jukka-Pekka Saraste conducts Mozart and Shostakovich

There are some instruments that are particularly good at touching the innermost – among them is the clarinet. As early as 1784, a journalist raved: »Whoever plays the clarinet soulfully seems to declare his love to the whole world, to the heavenly beings themselves«. Mozart had quickly understood that gripping music was possible with the then newly invented woodwind instrument – and so in 1791, shortly before his untimely death, he composed his famous Clarinet Concerto. Especially in the Adagio, the chanting tone becomes fully effective: in a magical way, the clarinet »sings« of love, joy, beauty and perhaps even of the premonition of the end of life – the dedicatee Anton Stadler is said to have remarked: »Let him sing once more, even if it be his swan song«. Before our solo clarinettist Christoph Müller takes over the soulful performance for this hauntingly beautiful work, we play a piece from the Finnish homeland of our guest conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste: »Hit & Run« was penned by Sauli Zinovjev, born in 1988, who is causing a stir with his emotional orchestral works and was recently a guest in Bamberg for a year on a Villa Concordia scholarship. We conclude with a journey into the cosmos of Shostakovich, who also wanted to reflect current feelings and thoughts with his music – and said: »When I learn that someone is being tortured, I feel the pain myself.« We play his touching Eighth Symphony, with which he did not deliver the heroic work his fatherland wanted in the middle of the war in 1943, but cast the suffering of his soul in mostly gloomy sounds – a conductor friend said that Shostakovich thereby set »the horror of the life of an intellectual at that time« into music.

Jukka-Pekka Saraste conducts Mozart and Shostakovich

There are some instruments that are particularly good at touching the innermost – among them is the clarinet. As early as 1784, a journalist raved: »Whoever plays the clarinet soulfully seems to declare his love to the whole world, to the heavenly beings themselves«. Mozart had quickly understood that gripping music was possible with the then newly invented woodwind instrument – and so in 1791, shortly before his untimely death, he composed his famous Clarinet Concerto. Especially in the Adagio, the chanting tone becomes fully effective: in a magical way, the clarinet »sings« of love, joy, beauty and perhaps even of the premonition of the end of life – the dedicatee Anton Stadler is said to have remarked: »Let him sing once more, even if it be his swan song«. Before our solo clarinettist Christoph Müller takes over the soulful performance for this hauntingly beautiful work, we play a piece from the Finnish homeland of our guest conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste: »Hit & Run« was penned by Sauli Zinovjev, born in 1988, who is causing a stir with his emotional orchestral works and was recently a guest in Bamberg for a year on a Villa Concordia scholarship. We conclude with a journey into the cosmos of Shostakovich, who also wanted to reflect current feelings and thoughts with his music – and said: »When I learn that someone is being tortured, I feel the pain myself.« We play his touching Eighth Symphony, with which he did not deliver the heroic work his fatherland wanted in the middle of the war in 1943, but cast the suffering of his soul in mostly gloomy sounds – a conductor friend said that Shostakovich thereby set »the horror of the life of an intellectual at that time« into music.

Manfred Honeck conducts Mozart and Franz Schmidt

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was famous for his piano wizardry and composed most of his numerous piano concertos for himself as virtuoso – with a few exceptions: He wrote the E-flat major concerto in 1777 for the French pianist Louise Victoire Jenamy, who must have been an outstanding virtuoso, as the technically demanding work requires fast fingers. Moreover, with the heartfelt Andantino, it features the first minor-key movement in one of Mozart’s concertos. The internationally renowned pianist Jan Lisiecki performs the soulful playing for us in this wonderful piano concerto. Following this, under the authority of Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck, a regular guest with us, we will be taking a closer look at the music of an artistic personality who made his mark in Vienna alongside other great composers at the end of the late Romantic period: Franz Schmidt – who studied with Bruckner for a while and whom Mahler described at the time as »the most musical person in Vienna«. In an autobiographical sketch, Schmidt expressed the impetus for his passion: »Music first found its way into my soul through the organ.« He ultimately left us a total of four symphonies, the last of which was composed after a severe blow of fate: in 1932, his daughter Emma died shortly after the birth of her child. Thus the work became a moving instrumental requiem: An orchestral world of profound reflection and powerful emotion – beginning and ending with a solitary trumpet solo, about which Franz Schmidt said it was »the last music one takes into the hereafter«.