ConcertPulse
Le sacre du printemps
Konzerthalle Bamberg, Joseph-Keilberth-Saal (Bamberg)
This concert will plunge you into an age of dazzling tonal colour that believed, to quote Victor Hugo, that "art is not fit to be a leading-string, fetter, or gag; it says to the free man: ‘Go!’ and releases him into that garden of poetry where there is no forbidden fruit." Dukas wrote his legendary programme music in 1897. In this magnificent setting of Goethe's ballad of the same name, the overconfident sorcerer's apprentice wants to play at creation himself and master the elements. He recites the charm that makes a broom run to the river for water, but then is unable to tame the huge chaos he has created and stop the impending deluge – until the sorcerer puts an end to the ludicrous goings-on with the right spell. Berlioz’s deeply romantic songs are brimming with sensuality: the seductive cycle “Les nuits d’été”, orchestrated in 1856, is based on a collection of poetry by Théophile Gautier with the contradictory title “La comédie de la mort”. So while these sublime “summer nights” sometimes beguilingly evoke the delights of love, their darker central section focuses on separation and death, elegiacally and emotively describing a tormented spirit. The fetters are then completely cast off in Stravinsky's famous 1913 ritual invocation "Le sacre du printemps", which deals with the "mystery of the great impulse of creative forces". The events described in the music are based on pagan images: in order to propitiate the god of spring, a girl is sacrificed and, in the end, like a seed, she is “buried in the bosom of the earth" – all set to music in a veritable orgy of rhythm.