ConcertPulse
Filters
The Essen Philharmonic's 18th annual Organ Prize Winners' Concert showcases young virtuosos whose nimble fingers and feet glide across the Kuhn organ's keys and pedals. These musicians, proven masters through renowned competitions like the "Grand Prix de Chartres", "St. Albans", and "ION", are poised for international careers. This season, they present their chosen compositions and improvisations.
For lovers of chamber music the Recital Hall is the venue of choice. You can hear the musicians breathe and you can practically touch them. This hall is also cherished by musicians for its beautiful acoustics and direct contact with the audience. In the Recital Hall you can hear the best musicians of our time. Buy your tickets now and experience the magic of the Recital Hall for yourself!
At aged 15, Vadym Kholodenko first attracted attention when he decided upon the Maria Callas piano competition in Athens. By winning the gold medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in the USA, the career of the Ukrainian pianist finally gained momentum. Concerts took him throughout Europe, Asia and North America and always garnered rave reviews. As a result, Kholodenko is still one of the rather quiet stars on the scene, who instead of media noise prefers musical quality. Now, it is best to convince yourself of this at his Elbphilharmonie debut as part of »Pianomania«. Kholodenko is consequently the perfect candidate for the current theme of »Transcriptions« because he has also made several arrangements of well-known works for the piano himself. In Hamburg, however, he now presents two unfamiliar arrangements: firstly, the piano version of Mozart’s Requiem, made by the German composer and pupil of Liszt, Karl Klindworth. Then, Franz Liszt’s appropriation of Hector Berlioz’s famous »Symphonie fantastique« – a wild musical ride, which Berlioz’s vast score congenially captures using 88 keys.
Lukas Sternath, born in 2001, began his career as a Vienna Boys' Choir member before studying piano in Vienna and Hanover under Igor Levit. He won first prize and seven special awards at the 2022 ARD Music Competition. He has performed at prestigious venues like Vienna's Musikverein and Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie. As a Rising Star, he returns to Cologne's Philharmonie for a solo recital, featuring Liszt's challenging sonata.
Vienna’s traditions for New Year’s concerts date all the way back to 1838. The format, which has become a global TV event, originated in the 1930s, always with music by the Strauss family and some other composers, and with a selection of waltzes, mazurkas, polkas and marches.Conductor Gergely Madaras grew up in Budapest and crossed the Danube daily. The distance between Budapest and Vienna via the Danube is short - Hungarian folk music and dance music has been very popular in the Austrian capital and left its mark on orchestral music there. Some of Vienna's prominent composers were Hungarians - like Franz Lehár (1870-1946). The Gold and Silver Waltz is one of his most famous works. The piano phantom Franz Liszt (1811-1886), represented by Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, also left a mark on the city.Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) was German, but still one of Vienna’s leading figures from the 1860s and on. Some of Brahm’s best friends were Hungarians, and he was strongly influenced by Hungarian music. At this concert you can hear three of his popular Hungarian Dances for orchestra. Nobody ranks higher than the Strauss Family in the Vienna New Year’s concert. Johann Strauss Jr. (1825-1899) is represented by seven pieces at the concert, among them An der schönen blauen Donau. The concert ends with the Radetzky March by Johann Strauss Sr. (1804-1849).
Georgijs Osokins is the duo partner of the renowned violinist Gidon Kremer. He has also performed several times as a soloist in the Elbphilharmonie’s Grand and Recital Halls. On this evening, he will present a particularly demanding programme with works by Brahms, Haydn, Chopin and Liszt – the highest virtuosity paired with the greatest expressiveness!
France and Germany – today, these two countries are best friends. The long-standing rivalry between them has, however, not only led to many a disagreement in politics. Even in the field of organ music, they took different paths for a long time: in France, people celebrated sound and tone colour; in Germany, virtuosity and counterpoint. Karol Mossakowski showcases the best of both worlds: a sedate organ symphony in the style of Widor, sound magic in the style of Fauré and visionary music in the style of Alain – all of them first-rate musical gems. Fauré clad the myth of Pelléas and Mélisande in subtle, highly sensitive sounds, Alain paved the way for the 21st century with his organ music widening the musical horizon. Not for nothing are the moving Litanies on the foundation of human existence some of the most widely played organ works of all for instance. Mendelssohn and Liszt are bywords for the German Romantic school. The variations sérieuses as well as the Mephisto Waltzes had originally been written for piano, but the art of arrangement has a long tradition especially in organ circles. What is not playable will be made playable – that is the motto here. After all, compared with pianists, organists also have two feet and an enormous pool of tonal colours at their disposal. Karol Mossakowski will also make use of this when he pursues another tradition cultivated by organists: improvisation. Here too, he is a true master of his trade.
Both create music through the flow of air, and yet they could hardly be more different: the powerful, large organ and the intimate, modest flute. In this concert, Thomas Ospital, organist of St Eustache Church in Paris, and Emmanuel Pahud, principal flautist of the Berliner Philharmoniker, demonstrate how well the two instruments go together – with dreamy, often highly virtuosic works by Jehan Alain, Camille Saint-Saëns and Frank Martin. The full splendour of the organ’s sound comes into its own in the transcription of Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre as well as in Liszt's Consolation and his variations on Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen”.
French singer Sabine Devieilhe is currently on a roll. The Opéra National de Paris, the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, the festival in Aix-en-Provence, the Bavarian State Opera, the Salzburg Festival – everyone is clamouring for her clear-as-a-bell soprano. She recently impressed in the Elbphilharmonie as Micaëla in Georges Bizet’s opera »Carmen«. Fortunately, she is not only addicted to opera, but also to song. Together with her long-time piano partner Mathieu Pordoy, she sings her way through a whole cosmos of loving lullabies by Franz Schubert, Franz Liszt, Richard Strauss and Edvard Grieg at the Elbphilharmonie. In the second half of the concert, she juxtaposes Strauss’ »Mädchenblumen« about four female characters with the female perspective of Lili Boulanger’s songs. With works by Germaine Tailleferre and Cécile Chaminade, Devieilhe brings two other French female composers to the stage who otherwise often lag behind the voices of their male colleagues. Of course, the chanson icon Édith Piaf and her »Hymne à l’amour« should not be missing in such a frenzy of love.
„Manuscripts don’t burn” – claimed a character of Bulgakov’s. Could Andrzej Panufnik feel that when composing his Tragic Overture in the occupied Warsaw? He intended to escape from the circumstances of the day, heading towards the sphere of sonic abstraction. And yet, in the imitative instrumental parts, dramatic to the point of feeling obsessive, echoes of the war can be heard on and on. The score survived the occupation, though it almost fell prey to the tenants who took over the composer’s Warsaw apartment and had a penchant for using sheet music as fuel for their stove. The Tragic Overture is one of those works that history itself uses as a medium to speak through. Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 is also a priceless treasure. If we converted the time it took to compose it into its duration time, we would learn that the master of Romantic melodics was writing at a pace of less than a minute per year! This time-consuming process bridged youthful emotionality and a clear outlook on the form – crystallising over 26 years. The Weimar premiere of the piece was conducted by none other than Hector Berlioz, who called himself „Beethoven’s crescendo”, with audiences’ idol – Franz Liszt – on the piano. In the Katowice concert, the solo part will be performed by Sergio Tiempo, whose pianistic fame guarantees experiences of not only emotional, but also intellectual nature. The orchestra will be led by Néstor Bayona, NOSPR’s conductor in residence. Morton Gould’s music undoubtedly belongs to the world of Dionysian values. Spirituals for orchestra is a hymn celebrating the American roots. Composed in mid-twentieth century, the music beams with unpretentious joy, flowing straight from its ethnic sources. Gould’s inspiration was not only Baptist church music, but also the “carnival” joy of music-making, which lends the piece a mood of musical celebration. Krzysztof SiwońConcert duration: approximately 60 minutes