ConcertPulse
Gewandhaus-Oktett
Gewandhaus Leipzig, Mendelssohn-Saal (Leipzig)
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Francis Poulenc, the true joker of the French artistic association »Groupe des Six«, created a precious treasure of five works for the woodwinds – the sextet, a trio and a sonata each for flute, clarinet and bassoon. With the sparkling Sextuor for piano and winds, a showpiece for the »musical prose« sought by the »Six«, he thrusts the audience right into the pulsating life of his home city of Paris. The three-movement piece was completed in 1932, but thoroughly revised in 1939 for the performance with Poulenc himself at the piano. At the beginning, it sounds like the Grands Boulevards, everything is noisy, running, honking, shouting and whirling, and the woodwinds are immediately allowed to bring their entire arsenal of modern acrobatics into play. The middle movement is more idyllic, before the fast section suddenly seems to be a fairground hustle and bustle. The work concludes with a hymn-like declaration of love to the metropolis on the Seine.
Since 2010, ensembles of the Staatskapelle have been performing in the Bode Museum. The concerts, lasting just over an hour, take place in the Gobelin Hall and feature music from past centuries. Visitors can combine the concerts with other museum activities, such as an exhibition visit or a meal at the museum café.
For more than six decades, the chamber concerts by musicians from the Staatskapelle have been a constant feature of the Staatsoper programme. This season, ensembles have come together to select music from different periods, styles and cultures under the theme of ‘playing together’. On eleven dates in the Apollosaal, which with its special atmosphere is an ideal venue for chamber music and communicative interaction between players and listeners, works from the Baroque to the present day will be performed in constellations that are both exciting and harmonious, in which tangible contrasts play just as important a role as a common resonance and the balancing of opposites.