Sold out: Giuseppe Mengoli conducts Beethoven and Mozart

Sold out: Giuseppe Mengoli conducts Beethoven and Mozart

Unfortunately, our Honorary Conductor Herbert Blomstedt is not able to conduct this concert as planned, as well as pianist Maria João Pires cannot come to Bamberg, both due to health reasons. Gladly Giuseppe Mengoli and Francesco Piemontesi will both step in on short notice. The concert programme remains unchanged.

SOLD OUT: Kent Nagano conducts Hosokawa and Bruckner

»The flute so gracefully captures the ears that it brings calm and peace to all emotions, right into the soul«. This quote from Plutarch builds a wonderful bridge to the opening of our concert – the spiritual flute concerto by the prominent Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa. Premiered in 2022, the piece is about a fascinating ceremony. According to Hosokawa, the solo part represents »a shamanic person« who invokes the orchestra as »the world, the universe, nature« using breathing sounds to summon supernatural forces: »The breathing sounds echo through the flute just like the wind in nature and become the song that awakens the spirit.« Our solo flutist Daniela Koch assumes the role of the shaman in this ritualistic piece, about which Hosokawa noted that it was »also prayer music for the end of the pandemic, as it was composed during the Corona catastrophe.« This fits with something Bruckner said in 1874 shortly after completing the first version of his third symphony: »Because the present state of the world, spiritually speaking, is weakness, I resort to strength and compose powerful music.« Many of Bruckner's movements are symphonic canticles in a sublime style, moving through the struggles and trials of a soul seeking its way to salvation through pain and suffering. Since the premiere of his third symphony was a dreadful disaster for him, he revised it multiple times, feeling deeply depressed – and finally scored a success with the 1889 version. Bruckner said about the fluctuating moods of this symphonic cosmos: »That‘s just the way it is in life. The polka stands for the humour and cheerfulness of the world – the chorale for the sadness and pain in it.«

Works by Mozart and Beethoven

Works by Mozart and Beethoven

Hrůša conducts Beethoven and Shostakovich

The Year 1905: Shostakovich’s monumental symphony meets Beethoven at his brightest. Unchained energy from conductor Jakub Hrůša, pianist Jonathan Biss and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

SOLD OUT: Beethoven: Piano Concerto in E flat major and Symphony No. 5

Ludwig van Beethoven: genius, freethinker and troubled soul – as well as a master of coping with crises through music. In 1809, he lamented: »We have experienced a rather crowded misery. The entire course of events has affected my body and soul. What a destructive, desolate life around me! Nothing but drums, cannons, all kinds of human misery!« At that time, he was greatly distressed by the current situation, as Vienna was occupied by Napoleon's troops. Food shortages, the black market and inflation were making life difficult for the people. Beethoven often sought shelter in the cellar – and put pillows over his head to avoid hearing the noise. But despite these unfavourable conditions, he wrote his great Fifth Piano Concerto: a gigantic work that gives the impression as if he wanted to drown out the chaos of war with the power and splendour of his music. For long segments, it spreads a belligerent sound – but with the Adagio, a very contemplative movement is interwoven: Beethoven is said to have been thinking of the »chants of devout pilgrims«. These fragmented states of mind are already pervasive in his Fifth Symphony, which was premiered a year earlier and can certainly be understood as a statement on the political fate of Europe at that time. With its famous obsessive motif, the work is at first full of anxiety and emotional complexity over long stretches. But an astounding inner force is able to find its way out of the initial darkness and into the ever brightening light. Like Beethoven wrote in one of his conversation books, which he used because of his deafness and in which he also collected essential ideas: »With music I have transformed my suffering into hope«.

SOLD OUT: Beethoven's Seventh and "Le sacre du printemps"

The Greek philosopher Plato already stated: »Music and rhythm find their way to the soul‘s most secret places.« Under the baton of our Chief Conductor, we present two exceptionally pulsating works in this concert. Already at the premiere of Beethoven»s Seventh Symphony in 1813, the spark from the dancing, trumpeting sounds immediately ignited the Vienna audience – and the composer, who was standing at the conductor‘s podium at the time despite his advanced deafness, said afterwards »with the most heartfelt emotion« that the performance had been »the non-plus-ultra of art«. The symphony is a very life-affirming work: indeed, there are a few subdued parts, but otherwise an optimistic sonority spreads with a boisterous tone and some occasionally embedded humour. Romain Rolland described the energised musical stream of Beethoven‘s Seventh as an »orgy of rhythm« – a characterisation that also fits perfectly with the orchestral frenzy in Stravinsky‘s eruptive piece »Le Sacre du printemps«. This was first performed exactly a century later than Beethoven‘s symphony – as ballet music on 29 May 1913 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Even more elemental forces are unleashed here and magical moments are created with ingenious orchestration: The idea for this breathtaking work came to Stravinsky when he was »dreaming of a pagan ritual« that involved invocations to re-awaken nature and would ultimately lead to an ecstatic sacrificial dance. To this end, he composed music whose fascinating vortex and pounding rhythms are perfectly suited to permeate the depths of the soul.

Works by Schubert, Beethoven and Mozart

Works by Schubert, Beethoven and Mozart