Landesjugendorchester Hamburg / Johannes Witt

Albert-Schweitzer-Jugendorchester / Mädchenchor Hamburg

A special highlight of the 2024/25 anniversary season to mark the 50th anniversary of the Albert Schweitzer Youth Orchestra is the »ASJ meets girls’ choir« concert. The Hamburg Girls’ Choir, one of Germany’s leading youth choirs, will be a guest at the Elbphilharmonie with the Albert Schweitzer Youth Orchestra. In addition to an a cappella part of the choir, in which choral music from various centuries and genres will be performed, the »Trois Nocturnes« by Claude Debussy for female choir and orchestra will take centre stage. Debussy wrote a letter to the famous violinist Eugène Ysaÿe in September 1894. In it, he mentioned the planned composition of three Nocturnes for violin and orchestra. Debussy announced different orchestration for the individual movements and wanted to achieve variations in tone colour in this way, similar to the way a painter creates a »study in grey«, for example. After he once again hinted in a letter in 1894 that the pieces were finished and that Ysaÿe could perform them, this was not to be the case. The final version, which was completed in 1899, did not include a solo violin at all. The Nocturnes were premièred in Paris in 1900. However, only the first two movements were performed due to the lack of a female choir, which only sings in the third nocturne. This unusual instrumentation alone meant that the »Trois Nocturnes« were often performed incompletely or not at all. On the occasion of the anniversary of the Albert Schweitzer Youth Orchestra, the work »Elegie an die Zeit« for women’s choir and orchestra was composed in autumn 2024 by Ettore Prandi, born in Milan and based in Hamburg. It is an exploration of time, a parameter that is so fundamental to all existence. In this way, an arc is created, from the transience of time in »Der Rosenkavalier« to Gerd Heinze’s poem »Wieviel Uhr«, on which »Elegie an die Zeit« is based. The work is to be understood as a short journey through elegiac, mournful and hopeful thoughts about the passing of time and will be performed for the first time at this concert. In the hit lists of classical music, »The Vltava« by Smetana always occupies one of the top places. Geographically speaking, the sources of the Vltava and Hamburg are connected by this river, which flows into the Elbe between Prague and Dresden. In the programme of the second part of the concert, this route leads from the »Vltava« via a stopover to Dresden. Richard Strauss’ opera »Der Rosenkavalier« was performed there for the very first time in 1911. The two works logically meet at their destination, the Elbphilharmonie. A geographical relationship that leads to a musical unity.