NDR Chamber Music Concert

NDR Chamber Music Concert: String Sextet

Rhythm and power – two words that perfectly describe the first work of the evening, »180 beats per minute«. In the early 1990s, Jörg Widmann, who is a widely sought-after composer and clarinettist (and recently became the NDR Radiophilharmonie’s First Guest Conductor), drew inspiration from the infamous techno nights of the era. The result is a work that, as the composer himself put it, represents »pure zest for life and pure love of rhythm« – and one that is still often performed today. Erwin Schulhoff, the Prague enfant terrible of the 1920s, contributed a very special sextet to the genre. While he remained true to the four-movement structure of his predecessors, Schulhoff ends his sextet with a profound adagio rather than a fast-paced finale. Premiered in 1924, the work has now been included by the NDR ensemble Polygon on their programme again in honour of the work’s 100th anniversary. The first of the two Johannes Brahms string sextets was premiered to great acclaim in Hanover in 1860. Yet the publishers were initially sceptical – ensemble music for a sextet of strings was not very common. For the young Brahms, however, the string sextets meant the beginning of his breakthrough as a composer. Their enormous popularity continues to secure them a place on concert programmes around the world to this day.