ConcertPulse
Ensemble Resonanz / Jean-Guihen Queyras / Johannes Fischer
Elbphilharmonie, Kleiner Saal (Hamburg)
»›I can’t remember things before they happen,‹ remarked Alice. ›It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,‹ the Queen remarked.« (Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There) Ligeti’s Cello Concerto rises out of nowhere, without a red carpet for the soloist’s performance, but rather as a journey through the interstices of silence and the barely audible, of sound and noise, to explore the extreme subtleties of timbre and emotion. An anti-concert with a hypnotic effect that challenges boundaries and laws. Anton Kraft was also fond of playing with what was possible, which had already impressed his contemporaries Haydn and Beethoven. The Monkey Mountains, also known as the Krkonoše Mountains, inspired the Czech composer Pavel Haas almost exactly a century ago. At a time of great political unrest and personal turmoil, he created an expressive work full of emotions and contrasts: peaks rise up like sleeping giants, dancing on tiptoe to mazurkas and polkas to catchy melodies, only to fall out of time and form with drums at the end. From delicate, lyrical passages to explosive, rhythmic outbursts, this piece offers a variety of impressions that resonate long after you leave the concert hall. Banned at the time, but not forgotten.