Vimbayi Kaziboni & Tabea Zimmermann

Tabea Zimmermann / Lilya Zilberstein

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.

TABEA ZIMMERMANN

“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.

Tabea Zimmermann

Tabea Zimmermann

Iván Fischer & Tabea Zimmermann

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.

Iván Fischer & Tabea Zimmermann

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.

Watch This Space: Tabea Zimmermann & friends

Isabelle Faust / Tabea Zimmermann / Jean-Guihen Queyras

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.

Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra / Nils Mönkemeyer / Kent Nagano

The Russian composer Vladimir Tarnopolski is certainly no stranger to contemporary music. His works have been performed at many major festivals over recent decades. He has received various prizes and released many of his works on CD. As a professor of composition at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, he has also passed on his knowledge to a whole generation of young composers. »Im Dunkel vor der Dämmerung« (»In the Dark before Dawn«) is the title of a new work commissioned by the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra and premiered in this concert. »Sinfonia Eroica« was the title Ludwig van Beethoven gave his third symphony in 1804, a »heroic symphony composed to celebrate the memory of a great man«. Whether or not this »great man« was to be little Napoleon? At first it was, in all likelihood. But Beethoven probably decided to leave out any corresponding dedication, since the Corsican’s personal coronation as emperor was, in the composer’s eyes, a bitter betrayal of the republican ideas of the French Enlightenment. Was Beethoven himself perhaps the hero? An innovator in the context of music history? Whatever the answer, he certainly breaks new ground with his »Eroica«.

Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra / Nils Mönkemeyer / Kent Nagano

The Russian composer Vladimir Tarnopolski is certainly no stranger to contemporary music. His works have been performed at many major festivals over recent decades. He has received various prizes and released many of his works on CD. As a professor of composition at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, he has also passed on his knowledge to a whole generation of young composers. »Im Dunkel vor der Dämmerung« (»In the Dark before Dawn«) is the title of a new work commissioned by the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra and premiered in this concert. »Sinfonia Eroica« was the title Ludwig van Beethoven gave his third symphony in 1804, a »heroic symphony composed to celebrate the memory of a great man«. Whether or not this »great man« was to be little Napoleon? At first it was, in all likelihood. But Beethoven probably decided to leave out any corresponding dedication, since the Corsican’s personal coronation as emperor was, in the composer’s eyes, a bitter betrayal of the republican ideas of the French Enlightenment. Was Beethoven himself perhaps the hero? An innovator in the context of music history? Whatever the answer, he certainly breaks new ground with his »Eroica«.