Popelka, Grigorian · R. Strauss, Schubert
Musikverein Wien, Great Hall (Wien)
Daniel Harding will perform Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto together with Leif Ove Andsnes. Composed in 1809 during the Napoleonic occupation of Vienna, its expansive structure exudes a longing for peace and humanity. Instead of the planned Sinfonia domestica, the second part features two of Richard Strauss’ most popular tone poems, Death and Transfiguration and Don Juan, with which the young composer finally embarked on the path to becoming a “musician of the future”. Strauss established his fame as the leading opera composer of his time a few years later with Salome. The culmination of this ground-breaking work is Salome’s lascivious Dance of the Seven Veils – a dramaturgical and tonal fascination to this day.
"Women, you angels of the earth! Heaven's loveliest creation! You are the sole ray that illuminates our lives." (Alphonse de Lamartine) We start with the meaning-laden Adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony, inspired in 1901 by his blossoming love for his future wife Alma. A musical marriage proposal with strings and harp, it is a beguilingly beautiful work, albeit shot through with hauntingly world-weary and nostalgic tones. Like many great composers, Richard Strauss had a strong woman at his side – the singer Pauline, for whom he composed many of his vocal works. His lush "Four Last Songs" strike a tone of farewell. These settings of texts by Hesse and Eichendorff were written in 1948, when Strauss’ world had been shattered by the war and he was growing “weary of wandering”, to quote the final line of the last song. While profound grief can often stifle creativity, it sometimes can also awaken new creative energies – as proven by our programme’s emotional final piece, a "work of superhuman strength" written by Josef Suk, who had close personal ties with Dvořák. He became not only the latter’s master student, but also his friend and son-in-law as well, falling in love with Dvořák’s daughter Otylka. But this happiness was abruptly destroyed by Dvořák’s demise in 1904 and the tragically early death of Otylka a mere fourteen months later. Suk wrote the moving symphony "Asrael" to overcome this trauma and in memory of his loved ones, saying: "Such misfortune either destroys a person or brings all the forces lying dormant in them to the surface. Music saved me."