Keywords: Subscription Concert, Symphony Concert
| Tabea Zimmermann | Viola, Director |
| Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks |
| Symphony No. 4 for string orchestra | Karl Amadeus Hartmann |
| “Lachrymae. Reflections on a Song of Dowland” for viola and strings, op. 48a Reflections on a song of Dowland | Benjamin Britten |
| Chamber Symphony, op. 110a | Dmitri Shostakovich |
These events are similar in terms of concept, place, musicians or the program.
This season Tabea Zimmermann, the BRSO’s artist-in-residence, will present an entire series of special concertos for her instrument, the viola. One is William Walton’s Viola Concerto, composed for Lionel Tertis in 1928-29 at the suggestion of the English conductor Thomas Beecham. Tertis, however, felt unequal to its severe demands, and the première was entrusted to Paul Hindemith, a violist who had already written several pieces for his own use. This rarely heard composition will now be played by one of the supreme violists of our time, forming an exciting foil to Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra of 1943. The conductor is the seasoned Bartók specialist Iván Fischer.
This season Tabea Zimmermann, the BRSO’s artist-in-residence, will present an entire series of special concertos for her instrument, the viola. One is William Walton’s Viola Concerto, composed for Lionel Tertis in 1928-29 at the suggestion of the English conductor Thomas Beecham. Tertis, however, felt unequal to its severe demands, and the première was entrusted to Paul Hindemith, a violist who had already written several pieces for his own use. This rarely heard composition will now be played by one of the supreme violists of our time, forming an exciting foil to Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra of 1943. The conductor is the seasoned Bartók specialist Iván Fischer.
“There are very few artists in the Champions League of performers who are as passionate about new works as she is,” says composer Enno Poppe about his collaboration with Tabea Zimmermann, the dedicatee of his viola concerto Filz, which she premiered in 2015. At the Pierre Boulez Saal, she performs the work’s solo version, alongside music by Bach, Hoffmeister, and Reger as well as contemporary compositions by Georges Lentz and Garth Knox. Joining Zimmermann are students from her studio at the Frankfurt Musikhochschule, where she returned to teach as a professor in 2023.
The film »Dmitri Shostakovich. The Viola Sonata« tells the story of Shostakovich’s life in archive footage and relates it to the political events in the Soviet Union. The two directors skilfully edited their material exclusively with music by the composer, spanning all creative phases and genres. The film, which was initially banned and confiscated by the censors, bears witness to Dmitri Shostakovich’s conflict-ridden, difficult existence in his totalitarian homeland. The movie is shown in Russian language with German subtitles. The viola sonata op. 147 that follows the film was completed by the gravely ill composer shortly before his death. He did not live to see its first performance (1975) – a musical document of his farewell to the world. With star violist Tabea Zimmermann and Lilya Zilberstein at the piano, this impressive work is in the very best of hands.
After the piano trio of the previous day, a string trio takes the spotlight with Mozart’s Divertimento K 563, in counterpoint to which the musicians, Isabelle Faust, Tabea Zimmermann and Jean-Guihen Queyras, offer a selection of solo pieces.
For lovers of chamber music the Recital Hall is the venue of choice. You can hear the musicians breathe and you can practically touch them. This hall is also cherished by musicians for its beautiful acoustics and direct contact with the audience. In the Recital Hall you can hear the best musicians of our time. Buy your tickets now and experience the magic of the Recital Hall for yourself!
»Music is love‘s soul, for it is the touching of the divine with the human.« These were the thoughts of Bettina von Arnim – and in our concert conducted by Andrew Manze we indulge in such deep soundscapes as Respighi‘s »Concerto Gregoriano« from 1921: it conjures up a religiously solemn world of the middle ages – inspired by his preoccupation with the honorable church modes and meditative melodies of Gregorian chant, which had seized him »like an addiction« at the time. The violin concerto is therefore largely a lyrical-contemplative composition and quotes the Easter sequence »victimae paschali laudes« in the middle movement – but in the end it soars hymn-like with echoes of the famous »Salve Regina« chant like a fervent profession of faith. One critic characterised the violin part as that of »a cantor in an ancient religious ceremony, with the orchestra personifying the choir of the believers«. With us, Frank Peter Zimmermann will assume the role of solo choir leader with his Stradivarius. What follows is a journey into the Bruckner cosmos: his creative work was inseparably intertwined with religious sentiments, which earned him the nickname »Musician of God«. Before he had dared to approach symphonies, he had already made a name for himself as an eminent organist and church composer. After several dissatisfactory attempts, he composed his first definitive symphony in Linz in 1865/66 – which, however, he reworked in Vienna in 1891 on the basis of the experience he had gathered thereafter: it captivates the listener with its natural originality, grandiose themes and climax after climax – and in addition offers deep insights into Bruckner‘s state of mind in the heartfelt Adagio.
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