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It is a popular romantic theme: the fine line between genius and madness. In Beethoven’s case, all one needs to do is look at the portrait of the agitated artist with tangled hair and crazy eyes, who jots his notes down on paper in a manic creative frenzy and in the face of impending deafness. Wolf was hospitalized twice – and died in the clinic. When Schumann was admitted to Endenich, “melancholy with delusion” was noted as a diagnosis in the admission book. And the Italian Renaissance prince Carlo Gesualdo was not only a gifted composer, but very probably also a murderer. In the chromatic descent at the end of his madrigal, we seem to hear the agony of a guilty man tormented by remorse. The result? Insanely brilliant music!
They were born in the same year (1860), enrolled at Vienna Conservatory at the same time and temporarily lived in the same flat: Gustav Mahler and Hugo Wolf. Then their paths led them in completely different directions: Mahler advanced to become the most successful conductor and greatest symphonist of his era, while Wolf, having failed in other genres, devoted his creative energy to the art song, in which field he left behind a uniquely vibrant oeuvre. As was common in his day, Wolf orchestrated several of his own lieder. Our programme reunites these two disparate contemporaries and shows what they composed at the same time: Mahler’s First and Wolf’s settings of Goethe and Mörike were all written around the year 1888.
They were born in the same year (1860), enrolled at Vienna Conservatory at the same time and temporarily lived in the same flat: Gustav Mahler and Hugo Wolf. Then their paths led them in completely different directions: Mahler advanced to become the most successful conductor and greatest symphonist of his era, while Wolf, having failed in other genres, devoted his creative energy to the art song, in which field he left behind a uniquely vibrant oeuvre. As was common in his day, Wolf orchestrated several of his own lieder. Our programme reunites these two disparate contemporaries and shows what they composed at the same time: Mahler’s First and Wolf’s settings of Goethe and Mörike were all written around the year 1888.