Keywords: Vocal Music
| Dennis Russell Davies | Conductor |
| Mari Moriya | Soprano |
| Falk Hoffmann | Tenor |
| MDR-Sinfonieorchester | Orchestra |
| MDR-Rundfunkchor | Choir |
| Die Planeten – Suite für großes Orchester op. 32 | Gustav Holst |
| The Voyage (Auszüge) | Philip Glass |
These events are similar in terms of concept, place, musicians or the program.
»Art is not just beauty, art should move people as well,« says Diana Damrau. There can be no doubt that she does this to excellent effect: for years now, the celebrated soprano has been filling opera houses and concert halls all over the world with her radiant voice and a peerless intensity of expression. Yet the appealing Bavarian singer has no airs and graces, nor does she think in terms of musical pigeonholes. Good-humoured and completely authentic, she sings opera and sacred repertoire with the same verve as musicals and film songs. Discount for all under 30: Exclusively for this concert, anyone under 30 can book the REDticket. This means that even the best available seats only cost € 12. Proof of age must be shown when attending the concert, otherwise the difference to the original price will have to be paid. Diana Damrau and her colleague Nikolai Schukoff devote their Elbphilharmonie concert to the great operetta composers, from the »waltz king« Johann Strauss and Berlin native Paul Lincke to Emmerich Kálmán and Franz Lehár. An evening of lovely waltzes and other tunes that should move the audience’s hearts – and their feet as well.
Richard Wagner’s opera »Die Walküre« is a passionate exploration of big themes such as love and betrayal, loyalty and rebellion. The god Wotan wanted to rule through contracts rather than violence but, as a result of broken promises, becomes increasingly entangled in problems until blood begins to flow. Finding no solutions, Wotan finally cries: »One thing alone do I want: the end!« But his daughter Brünnhilde thwarts his plans… At the Hamburg International Music Festival, there is an opportunity to experience the opera in historical original sound for the first time under conductor Kent Nagano. At the festival, Kent Nagano is not conducting »his« orchestra, the Hamburg State Opera, but rather the Dresdner Festspielorchester, Concerto Köln and a top-class cast of soloists, who explore the playing and singing techniques of the 19th century. »More intimate tone colours, a more multi-layered and transparent sound, freed from the ballast of the centuries,« say the performers about the project, which seems to have been tailor-made for the transparent acoustics of the Elbphilharmonie Grand Hall. One of Wagner’s most famous pieces, the »Ride of the Valkyries« – famously used by director Francis Ford Coppola as background music to a helicopter attack in the anti-war film »Apocalypse Now« – thus sounds altogether different.
It only lasts seven minutes, but it is nonetheless monumental: Arnold Schoenberg’s melodrama »Ein Überlebender aus Warschau« (A Survivor from Warsaw). Schoenberg had readopted the Jewish faith, and he wrote the piece, which opens with a fierce trumpet signal, in 1947 to commemorate the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. The score mixes the narrative of a man hiding in the sewers with German commands, martial rhythms – and finally the hopeful Hebrew words »Schma Yisrael«, which the Jews use to prepare for death. The part of the narrator is taken by Dominique Horwitz, himself the son of Jewish parents. The French-German actor and chansonnier is in great demand for performances of literary works of music, from Tom Waits’s »Black Rider« to Stravinsky’s »Histoire du soldat«. And the soloists in the second part of the programme likewise have resounding names: among them are the American soprano Susanna Phillips, alto Gerhild Romberger and baritone Michael Nagy. »War and Peace« is the motto of the Hamburg International Music Festival, and chief conductor Alan Gilbert and his NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra place the emphasis on a work of hope and brotherly love: Beethoven’s world-famous Ninth Symphony. The overwhelming finale culminates in Friedrich Schiller’s lines »All men shall be brothers«, which win the day against all the powers of destruction. Beethoven not only touched a nerve in his own time by ending the symphony with a large-scale chorus of rejoicing: nowadays, everyone is familiar with the melody in the guise of the European anthem. Even the playing time of a compact disc, when the CD format was introduced, was geared to enable Beethoven’s oversized Ninth to be played without a break.
It only lasts seven minutes, but it is nonetheless monumental: Arnold Schoenberg’s melodrama »Ein Überlebender aus Warschau« (A Survivor from Warsaw). Schoenberg had readopted the Jewish faith, and he wrote the piece, which opens with a fierce trumpet signal, in 1947 to commemorate the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. The score mixes the narrative of a man hiding in the sewers with German commands, martial rhythms – and finally the hopeful Hebrew words »Schma Yisrael«, which the Jews use to prepare for death. The part of the narrator is taken by Dominique Horwitz, himself the son of Jewish parents. The French-German actor and chansonnier is in great demand for performances of literary works of music, from Tom Waits’s »Black Rider« to Stravinsky’s »Histoire du soldat«. And the soloists in the second part of the programme likewise have resounding names: among them are the American soprano Susanna Phillips, alto Gerhild Romberger and baritone Michael Nagy. »War and Peace« is the motto of the Hamburg International Music Festival, and chief conductor Alan Gilbert and his NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra place the emphasis on a work of hope and brotherly love: Beethoven’s world-famous Ninth Symphony. The overwhelming finale culminates in Friedrich Schiller’s lines »All men shall be brothers«, which win the day against all the powers of destruction. Beethoven not only touched a nerve in his own time by ending the symphony with a large-scale chorus of rejoicing: nowadays, everyone is familiar with the melody in the guise of the European anthem. Even the playing time of a compact disc, when the CD format was introduced, was geared to enable Beethoven’s oversized Ninth to be played without a break.
The State Association of North German Amateur Orchestras celebrates the 100th anniversary of the BDLO Federal Association of Amateur Music Symphony and Chamber Orchestras with Mahler’s »Resurrection Symphony«. To this day, performances of Mahler’s monumental Second Symphony are an impressive event - not only in Hamburg, where the composer once had the inspiration for the choral finale in the Michel. Together, the Gustav Mahler Association Hamburg, which has set itself the task of raising public awareness of the composer and the traditional music association, founded a project orchestra and choir especially for this concert, bringing the work of the century to the Laeiszhalle to mark the anniversary.
Benjamin Britten was a passionate pacifist. With his »War Requiem« of 1961, he composed his most impressive and moving confessional work in 1961, which is considered one of the central works of the 20th century against war and in favour of peace. With this key work, Teodor Currentzis delivers the musical epilogue for the Hamburg International Music Festival and closes the programmatic arc of the motto »War and Peace«. The star conductor comes to Hamburg once again in his role as chief conductor of the SWR Symphony Orchestra and has engaged baritone Matthias Goerne, among others, for the hugely scored »War Requiem« alongside his orchestra and three formidable choirs. Britten wrote his »War Requiem« to commemorate the devastating air raid on Coventry in 1940 and for the consecration of the rebuilt cathedral in the city. The composer himself conducted the acclaimed 1962 premiere of this monumental composition for orchestra, choirs, three solo singers and organ. The soloists back then included Goerne’s teacher Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. However, Britten’s »War Requiem« is not simply a protest against all forms of inhumanity and the wars of the 20th century. His requiem mass, which ends with a prayer for eternal peace, has lost none of its power or relevance.
»Scena di Berenice«, which is rarely performed nowadays, was composed by Joseph Haydn during his second visit to London. The content is quintessential for a classical aria: a woman in love has been abandoned by her partner and now laments sonorously. 130 years later, a work by Béla Bartók caused a far-reaching scandal: the fiery dance pantomime called »The Miraculous Mandarin« was banned in Cologne in 1926 by the then Lord Mayor Konrad Adenauer. This is how barbaric the music seemed to the listeners. And it is indeed true: Bartók was not interested in music as edification. He wanted to depict reality. And reality in the early 20th century was often a long way from harmonious. In the second half of the concert, Gustav Mahler’s fourth and arguably most light-filled symphony takes us back to the beginning of the century. But beware: the light in the symphony is tempered with some dark shallow waters. At a children’s concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall back in 1960, the great rediscoverer of Mahler, Leonard Bernstein, said: »Well, you might not believe it, but the man who wrote all that jolly stuff was one of the most unhappy people in history!«
»Scena di Berenice«, which is rarely performed nowadays, was composed by Joseph Haydn during his second visit to London. The content is quintessential for a classical aria: a woman in love has been abandoned by her partner and now laments sonorously. 130 years later, a work by Béla Bartók caused a far-reaching scandal: the fiery dance pantomime called »The Miraculous Mandarin« was banned in Cologne in 1926 by the then Lord Mayor Konrad Adenauer. This is how barbaric the music seemed to the listeners. And it is indeed true: Bartók was not interested in music as edification. He wanted to depict reality. And reality in the early 20th century was often a long way from harmonious. In the second half of the concert, Gustav Mahler’s fourth and arguably most light-filled symphony takes us back to the beginning of the century. But beware: the light in the symphony is tempered with some dark shallow waters. At a children’s concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall back in 1960, the great rediscoverer of Mahler, Leonard Bernstein, said: »Well, you might not believe it, but the man who wrote all that jolly stuff was one of the most unhappy people in history!«
Tan Dun is considered one of the most impressive and influential composers of our time – a crossover artist who combines classical and modern elements in his music and creates a connection between East and West. His work »Choral Concerto: Nine«, inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and composed to mark the 250th anniversary of his birth in 2020, now celebrates its German premiere at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.
On 13 September 1874, one of the most influential and revolutionary composers in musical history was born in Vienna: Arnold Schönberg. Exactly 150 years later, the XXL-filled NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra under principal conductor Alan Gilbert and several hundred choristers along with top-class soloists congratulate him with a veritable mammoth serenade: the »Gurre-Lieder« is probably one of the most large-scale works in the entire repertoire of classical music. At the same time, a worthy start to the new NDR season full of further highlights! At the premiere of the monumental oratorio in 1913 in Vienna, Anton Webern enthused: »What a moment in my life! Unforgettable… The sensation of this roaring sound really moves me«. And this pupil of Schönberg was not the only one: the entire hall rejoiced when faced with the opulent, intoxicating sounds, which no one would have expected from Schönberg at all! The pioneer of atonality and twelve-tone music had long since distanced himself from his late-Romantic Jugendstil. When he completed the orchestration for this piece in 1910/11, which he had already started between 1900 and 1903, he, nevertheless, did not consider it obsolete, but as the »key to my entire development« and document of his musical origin. Five renowned solo singers, Thomas Quasthoff as the narrator, the combined radio choirs from Leipzig, Berlin and Hamburg as well as the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra with double and triple wind, string and percussion strengths then let the tragic story of jealousy surrounding the Danish King Valdemar and his mistress Tove become the sonorous event for the opening of the 2024/25 NDR Season. Jens Peter Jacobsen set the medieval myth play at Gurre Castle in Zealand in 1868 in several poems, which provided Schönberg with text templates for his profound orchestral song cycle.
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