Steve Reich

Kammerkonzert: Werke von Glasunow, Lang, Žuraj, Fries und Reich

Kammerkonzert: Werke von Glasunow, Lang, Žuraj, Fries und Reich

Kammerkonzert: Werke von Glasunow, Lang, Žuraj, Fries und Reich

Les Métaboles / SWR Experimentalstudio

In his late work, Luigi Nono always also transformed the music into moving ambient sound. To achieve that, he regularly worked with the legendary SWR Experimentalstudio. One example is his vocal and instrumental work »Diario polacco No. 2«, in which electronic sounds permeate the hall. His work »›Hay que caminar‹ sognando«, in contrast, features two violinists wandering from one music desk to the next. Under conductor Léo Warynski, the Les Métaboles vocal ensemble and the SWR Experimentalstudio remember Nono the political man. When martial law was introduced in Poland in 1981 he wrote »Quando stanno morendo / Diario polacco No. 2« and dedicated it to persecuted Polish friends and comrades. Nono composed »›Hay que caminar‹ sognando« in 1989, one year before his death. With its »choreographic« arrangement, it epitomises an inscription, seen on a monastery wall, that had fascinated Nono: »Wanderer, there is no path. All that matters is the walking.«

Ensemble Resonanz / Saerom Park / Dirk Rothbrust

Therapy for the restless and the overstimulated – that’s one way to describe Rebecca Saunders’s music. »She focuses the ear on minute gradations of timbre and intonation, and turns her performers into Zen masters of attention and focus«, writes the Guardian. How fortunate, then, that no less than five Elbphilharmonie concerts are dedicated to Saunders this season. Bringing this spotlight to a close is the award-winning Ensemble Resonanz – with a full-length Saunders programme, of course. Characteristically of Saunders, the Concerto for Violoncello, Strings and Percussion explores a minute musical ornament, the trill. In the hands of the cellist Saerom Park, it is transformed, says Saunders, into an »unpredictable sound fragment«. A backdrop of shimmering overtones and glissandi animates the piece »Unbreathed« with an eerie magic. And to close, »All that dust« is an opportunity for the percussion to shine, brilliantly performed by Dirk Rothbrust. As one critic brilliantly summarised, »Saunders is looking to create moments of such intensity that music ceases to simply be sound, but becomes an all-consuming synaesthetic experience.«

musica assoluta / Tanja Tetzlaff / cylixe / Thorsten Encke / Antje Boetius

The gentle sound of waves or the unpredictable force of nature, calming shades of blue or mysterious depths: All this is the sea – and it is a threatened habitat. Pollution, overfishing, global warming and noise are disrupting the processes in this delicate ecosystem. To mark the »Decade of Ocean Science 2021-2030« proclaimed by the UN, the innovative Hanoverian orchestra musica assoluta has launched a project that is making waves across all disciplines: »The Ocean is a noisy Place«. Boundaries between research and culture are being broken down, young artists are being offered a platform and the audience is always right in the middle of it all – together, they are becoming a brand-new mouthpiece for endangered biodiversity.

Bang on a Can All-Stars / Trio Mediaeval

Even for the state of the art, there are legends – such as the Bang on a Can All-Stars, who are always in search of very up-to-date, exciting music, regardless of genre categories. Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk and Ornette Coleman are just a few of the artists who have already collaborated with the New York collective. For their Elbphilharmonie debut, the musicians have chosen a work by founding member and Pulitzer prizewinner Julia Wolfe, which traces the myth surrounding the American folk hero John Henry as an oratorio between minimal music and country. There are hundreds of versions of this story, passed down by word of mouth and already cast in music many times whether by Johnny Cash, Van Morrison or Bruce Springsteen: at the end of the 19th century, a worker is supposed to have competed against a new kind of steam-driven hammer in railway construction with his muscle strength and won – to pay with his life as a result. Julia Wolfe has composed a meta myth with »Steel Hammer«: »The work is inspired by my love of legends and the music of the Appalachian Mountains. I fragmented the many different and somewhat contradictory versions of the ballad and wove it into a completely new format. The music often circles around individual words or phrases to tell the ultimate story and its different paths.« The Appalachian dulcimer (a kind of zither) joins the usual line-up of Bang on a Can with clarinet, a lot of percussion, guitars, piano, cello and double bass and provides for the American country sound. Trio Mediæval, a top-class a-cappella ensemble from Norway, completes the overall sound with its clear soprano and alto voices, which Julia Wolfe particularly appreciates for their great wealth of experience in the vocal tradition of their homeland.

Orchestral chamber music Philharmonic Octet Berlin

The Philharmonic Octet is characterised by polyphonic dialogue between its individual voices; at the same time, the ensemble represents the distinctive sound of the Berliner Philharmoniker in micro format. The main work of this programme is Beethoven’s early Septet in E flat major – a work which would become one of the composer’s most popular during his lifetime. This music is rapturous and vivid, with moments of profound emotion. Beethoven wrote his First Symphony immediately afterwards, and his mature style is already evident. Also on the programme are Wolfgang Rihm’s Sextet for clarinet, horn and string quartet and arrangements of Schubert's Moments musicaux.

Philharmonic chamber music String quartets and quintets by Korngold, Rihm and Bruckner

The String Quintet in F major is the only major chamber music work by Anton Bruckner, whose 200th birthday will be celebrated in 2024. The Philharmonic String Quartet and Amihai Grosz, principal violist of the Berliner Philharmoniker, present the piece in this concert. The evening will open with Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Second String Quartet, which has a distinctive Viennese lilt. A constant in this season’s Philharmonic Chamber Music concerts is the music of our composer in residence Wolfgang Rihm. Here you can hear his dark, finely-spun Grave, written in memory of violist Thomas Kakuska.

The Leonkoro Quartet plays Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Rihm

The Leonkoro Quartet has enjoyed a meteoric rise to success. Founded in 2019, the ensemble is already at home on international concert stages, making its celebrated Philharmonie debut in February 2024. “The Leonkoro Quartet’s risk-conscious power of intensity is legendary. Its virtuosity is unbelievably natural,” wrote the Tagesspiegel afterwards. The young musicians return this season – with an energetic string quartet by our composer in residence Wolfgang Rihm, who died in July of this year, a wonderfully melodic opus by Felix Mendelssohn, and a key work from Beethoven’ s late oeuvre.