The concert will be broadcast on 14 May 2024 at 8.03 pm on Deutschlandfunk Kultur.
Keywords: Symphony Concert, Vocal Music
| Tarmo Peltokoski | Conductor |
| Camilla Nylund | Soprano |
| Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin |
| Four Last Songs for soprano and orchestra | Richard Strauss |
| Symphony No. 10 in E minor op. 93 | Dmitri Shostakovich |
These events are similar in terms of concept, place, musicians or the program.
16 hours of operatic drama condensed to 75 minutes: Lorin Maazel’s ›The Ring Without Words‹ is a sort of »Wagner to go« with all the orchestra hits and leitmotifs. For newbies and dyed-in-the-wool Wagnerians. At the Bayreuth premiere of the entire »Ring« in 1876, a magic lantern was even deployed. In Kaija Saariaho’s orchestral piece of the same name as well, everything revolves around light and music. The composer incorporated sensuous sounds and iridescent colours into the work.
Pieces ofRichard Strauss, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Alexander Zemlinsky, Gustav Mahler u. a.
The concert opens with Serenade in E-flat major for 13 wind instruments (op. 7), composed by Richard Strauss at the age of 17. This journeyman piece already sparkles with the typical Straussian inflection. His Four Lieder of 1894 (op. 27), sung by Camilla Nylund, are gems of the late-romantic repertoire. Five years later Arnold Schoenberg wrote his string sextet Transfigured Night after a poem by Richard Dehmel. Poised between late romanticism and the burgeoning modern era, this gripping work was arranged for string orchestra in 1917, producing an even more sophisticated interplay of solo and ensemble passages.
In his Reflektor festival, André Heller brings very different artists together on the Elbphilharmonie stage. One of the internationally most sought-after opera singers, Camilla Nylund, meets Angélique Kidjo from Benin, the new »Mama Africa«, who received euphoric acclaim in March 2023 at her own Reflektor festival in the Elbphilharmonie. André Heller’s impressive portfolio of activities includes the art of opera directing, and the Finnish star-soprano Camilla Nylund is one of his favourite singers. In winter 2019/20, he directed Richard Strauss’s »Rosenkavalier« at the Staatsoper Berlin, with Nylund as the Marschallin. And the two soon cooked up another project: Nylund singing orchestral arrangements of classics from the Great American Songbook. The singer – who perfected her art performing Strauss and Wagner – succeeds in both expressing and reining in the power and silkiness of her dramatic soprano voice in a way that is faithful to the spirit of jazz. »Her unique gift, her flexibility, her curiosity, her virtuosic mastery of power, and her emotional warmth« are all qualities Heller admires in Nylund. All this can also be said of Angélique Kidjo, the best-known voice of contemporary African music. After her acclaimed Reflektor festival in spring 2023, Kidjo needs no introduction. For her upcoming performance in the Elbphilharmonie, she has commissioned new arrangements of soulful African songs for voice with orchestral accompaniment. The result is a programme of songs from very different cultures, performed by two great representatives of their art – it will be fascinating to see how it all comes together into one whole.
Camilla Nylund’s dramatic soprano has all it takes for the grand operas by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. But the Finn, who was recently hailed at the Elbphilharmonie for her »American Songbook« project, can also sing a couple of smaller numbers. This is particularly exciting when, with Helmut Deutsch, one of the most sought-after accompanists of all is at the piano. Alban Berg’s »Sieben frühe Lieder« (Seven Early Songs) are real gems and sound romantic in their own particular way – and tremendously sensitive. You can hear a lot of Gustav Mahler here! Especially as a composition pupil of Arnold Schönberg, the very young composer also makes forays to the limits of tonality here, however. Once older, he stubbornly held back many of his songs, but chose to release these seven. Obviously, he was particularly fond of them. With their warm, scintillating tenderness, which intensifies to a frenzy, they open up completely new horizons. There is perhaps no help for anyone who does not get goosebumps when the roses burst open in Theodor Storm’s »Nachtigall« (Nightingale)…
When a world-class orchestra bestows a 21-year-old conductor with the title of principal guest conductor, this says something. But the debut by the Finn Tarmo Peltokoski on the stand for the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in 2021 filled the musicians with enthusiasm to such an extent that they awarded this accolade for the very first time. After his Elbphilharmonie debut in March 2023, Peltokoski is now a guest again and walks together with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen on the winding paths of Symphony No. 5 by Jean Sibelius. Beforehand, you can experience a soloist in Brahms’ First Piano Concerto with Fabian Müller, who is at the head of the young generation of German pianists. Johannes Brahms wrangled for a long time with the composition of symphonies; Beethoven’s legacy seemed too great for him. The idea of transforming initial symphonic plans into a piano concerto came to him in a dream: »I was absolutely delighted!« he writes to Clara Schumann. Fabian Müller, who since winning five prizes at once at the ARD International Music Competition in 2017 is a sought-after pianist, elicited enthusiastic cheers at the Elbphilharmonie together with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen just last year – high time to build on this success. Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5 came about in a very lengthy process. The Finnish composer was still on the search for new solutions for a genre overloaded with traditions. But the long work paid off – with this symphony, Sibelius has one of his most original and most popular works!
From the poetry and sensuality of Debussy’s Faun, and the expressive power of a landmark cello piece, to Mahler’s first great epic, this program showcases the versatile talent of the conducting world’s new prodigy.
»I wouldn’t have become a conductor if I hadn’t discovered the music of Wagner,« admits Tarmo Peltokoski, the 24-year-old rising star who will be Music Director of the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse from September 2024. At his ProArte debut, the Finn, who has been hailed as the »talent of the century«, also conducts a programme that certainly has something to do with Wagner – without a single one of his works being performed. Whether Claude Debussy’s shimmering »Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune«, Ernest Bloch’s oriental-influenced cello rhapsody »Schelomo« – a feast for star cellist Sol Gabetta – or the powerful First Symphony by Wagner fan Gustav Mahler: each of these works deals with Richard Wagner in its own way. A home game »around the corner« for Tarmo Peltokoski.
ConcertPulse