Kammermusik des Konzerthausorchesters

Kammermusik des Konzerthausorchesters

Not only as a big symphonic ensemble, but also as the Konzerthaus Chamber Orchestra our Konzerthausorchester musicians come together several times each season – this time under the direction of of our First Concertmaster Sayako Kusaka. They choose the pieces and instrumentation for their concerts themselves.

Kammermusik des Konzerthausorchesters

It was Johannes Brahms who first honoured the youngest member of the woodwind section as „Fräulein Klarinette“, for whom he wrote wonderful chamber music late in life. However, Franz Schubert and Louis Spohr had already tapped into the clarinet's feminine side before that, writing intimate duets for it and the soprano, to which only the piano, which was obligatory in the bourgeois salon, was allowed to join in with the harmony. Our principal clarinettist Ralf Forster invites you into the Kleine Saal to indulge in the intimate house music atmosphere of a Schubertiade just before Christmas that reaches far beyond the composer's time.

Kammermusik des Konzerthausorchesters

Mozart's Hoffmeister Quartet was written a year after he began composing „Figaro“ and was published by Hoffmeister in 1786. A strange mixture of cheerfulness and melancholy connects the great quartet with the opera. Alfred Einstein said of the Adagio that it „speaks of suffering never before heard in such depth“. Schubert's Quartet in G major D 887 from 1826 was ahead of its time - it took almost half a century for this „uncompromising exploration of the themes of major and minor, life and death, hope and despair“ to find an appropriate response from critics and audiences.

Kammermusik des Konzerthausorchesters

Kammermusik des Konzerthausorchesters

The Horenstein Ensemble, founded more than 15 years ago by musicians of the Konzerthausorchester, has existed ever since in the rare formation of string quartet, clarinet, flute and harp. Our associate principal cellist Andreas Timm, who is one of the five founding members, describes making music together:"In chamber music in particular, things sometimes happen spontaneously that you can't prepare for in rehearsals: As a player, you suddenly feel this tension that spontaneously arises between the audience and the performers on stage. You can explore these moments of extreme intensity even more, make a piano even more delicate, lend even greater tensioin to a pause... These are the moments when you can work magic as a chamber music ensemble. In very different formations, from duo or trio to quintet to septet, we can offer a wide range as an ensemble - a possibility that musicians would otherwise hardly have. As a result, the audience naturally experiences particularly exciting contrasts, which are rooted both in the different music-historical epochs and in the acoustic diversity of the instruments."

Kammermusikmatinee des Konzerthausorchesters

Originating from South Africa, Germany and France, the members of the Franz Trio came together at the Konzerthaus in 2017 and have been performing with us regularly ever since. The program of their first concert together included a trio by their namesake Franz Schubert. This season, they have been joined by additional orchestra members: principal piccolo player Daniel Werner, principal oboist Szilvia Pápai and principal harpist Ronith Mues. Violist Ernst-Martin Schmidt on the program: “Three composers in three countries come up with enchantingly beautiful chamber music in the war year 1916: Max Reger writes his 2nd String Trio, Claude Debussy and Arnold Bax are inspired by the delicate combination of flute, viola and harp. Benjamin Britten's Phantasy Quartet for oboe and strings from 1932 and Jean Françaix's String Trio from 1933 bear witness to the witty, original chamber music created in England and France a generation later. This colourful program opens with a Fantasia by the forefather of English music, Henry Purcell. Max Reger struggles with him to the best of his ability to achieve mastery in the art of polyphonic composition.”

Kammermusikmatinee des Konzerthausorchesters

Kammermusikmatinee des Konzerthausorchesters

Kammermusikmatinee des Konzerthausorchesters

In addition to the eternally young classic of the narrow string octet literature by 16-year-old Felix Mendelssohn, the eight KHO string players, led by our first concertmaster Suyeon Kim, will perform a work by 19-year-old George Enescu, a The contemporary of Béla Bartók composed a key work in his own individual style: folk melodies from his native Romania meet Brahmsian Romanticism and Parisian fin de siècle.

Kammermusikmatinee des Konzerthausorchesters

The programme that contrabassist Igor Prokopets has put together with four string colleagues for our matinee two days before Christmas ranges from unusual duos to orchestral symbiosis in a quintet. Each piece combines the eight strings of two string instruments differently: sometimes very high with very low in the “sophisticated Piazzolla arrangement, in which the double bass also becomes a percussionist and the violin literally celebrates the tango” (Prokopets). Sometimes as a neighborly encounter between violin and viola, which instead of the original piano trace a short piece from Bartók's great Hungarian journey in 1905 in “Seven Romanian Dances”. Or with violin and cello, who take on the famous Passacaglia from Handel's G minor suite for harpsichord. Igor Prokopets could tell a lot about Giovanni Bottesini, whose “Gran Quintetto” forms the finale: As a musician, the Italian found his way to the lowest string instrument at an early age and wrote numerous pieces to suit it, including three concertos that are still popular today. He later became a conductor and even conducted the world premiere of Verdi's “Aida” in Cairo - but his heart definitely belonged to the double bass!