ConcertPulse
Guest performance
Philharmonie Berlin, Main Auditorium (Berlin)
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Cristian Măcelaru and the Orchestre National de France bring French flair to the Rhine with Maurice Ravel's Boléro, his piano concerto, and Stravinsky's "The Firebird." The program also features Ravel's jazz-influenced piano concerto, a fitting prelude to Ravel's 150th birthday in 2025.
There is often talk of underrated works by great composers: masterpieces that are only honoured after the death of their creators. But overrated works? Maurice Ravel considered his Boléro to be such a work. »I have only made one masterpiece, that is the Boléro; unfortunately, it contains no music,« he once said laconically. You can disagree and be pleased that Cristian Măcelaru is presenting the work with his Orchestre National de France in this ProArte concert. And that’s not all: in addition to the famous Boléro, the proven Ravel specialists from Paris are also bringing Ravel’s jazz-influenced piano concerto to Hamburg, interpreted by Beatrice Rana, who has played her way into the hearts of local audiences in recent seasons. A fitting prelude to the Ravel Year 2025, in which the 150th birthday of the composer with the unbeatable sense of orchestral colour will be celebrated.
Percussion as a solo instrument is still a newcomer to the traditional classical repertoire – and at the same time it is a cosmos entirely its own, shimmering in a thousand colours. The young musician Alexej Gerassimez from Essen, Germany, brings this cosmos impressively to life. The award-winning percussionist is a true all-rounder, switching genres effortlessly with an equal command of jazz grooves and of the complex rhythms of contemporary music. A perfect candidate for Finnish composer Kalevi Aho’s sparkling percussion concerto, which was first performed in 2012. Aho called the work »Sieidi«, the Sami word for a sacred rock or mountain. After the interval, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra climbs an orchestral summit in the shape of Dvořák’s »New World« Symphony. Since its New York premiere in 1893, the composer’s Ninth has been an absolute audience favourite.
The hr-Symphony Orchestra and the European Central Bank invite you to their open-air concert at the start of the season. Conducted by Alain Altinoglu, they promise a wonderful evening of music on the banks of the Main in Frankfurt. Over 20,000 visitors regularly enjoy these summer concerts.
This concert will plunge you into an age of dazzling tonal colour that believed, to quote Victor Hugo, that "art is not fit to be a leading-string, fetter, or gag; it says to the free man: ‘Go!’ and releases him into that garden of poetry where there is no forbidden fruit." Dukas wrote his legendary programme music in 1897. In this magnificent setting of Goethe's ballad of the same name, the overconfident sorcerer's apprentice wants to play at creation himself and master the elements. He recites the charm that makes a broom run to the river for water, but then is unable to tame the huge chaos he has created and stop the impending deluge – until the sorcerer puts an end to the ludicrous goings-on with the right spell. Berlioz’s deeply romantic songs are brimming with sensuality: the seductive cycle “Les nuits d’été”, orchestrated in 1856, is based on a collection of poetry by Théophile Gautier with the contradictory title “La comédie de la mort”. So while these sublime “summer nights” sometimes beguilingly evoke the delights of love, their darker central section focuses on separation and death, elegiacally and emotively describing a tormented spirit. The fetters are then completely cast off in Stravinsky's famous 1913 ritual invocation "Le sacre du printemps", which deals with the "mystery of the great impulse of creative forces". The events described in the music are based on pagan images: in order to propitiate the god of spring, a girl is sacrificed and, in the end, like a seed, she is “buried in the bosom of the earth" – all set to music in a veritable orgy of rhythm.
This concert will plunge you into an age of dazzling tonal colour that believed, to quote Victor Hugo, that "art is not fit to be a leading-string, fetter, or gag; it says to the free man: ‘Go!’ and releases him into that garden of poetry where there is no forbidden fruit." Dukas wrote his legendary programme music in 1897. In this magnificent setting of Goethe's ballad of the same name, the overconfident sorcerer's apprentice wants to play at creation himself and master the elements. He recites the charm that makes a broom run to the river for water, but then is unable to tame the huge chaos he has created and stop the impending deluge – until the sorcerer puts an end to the ludicrous goings-on with the right spell. Berlioz’s deeply romantic songs are brimming with sensuality: the seductive cycle “Les nuits d’été”, orchestrated in 1856, is based on a collection of poetry by Théophile Gautier with the contradictory title “La comédie de la mort”. So while these sublime “summer nights” sometimes beguilingly evoke the delights of love, their darker central section focuses on separation and death, elegiacally and emotively describing a tormented spirit. The fetters are then completely cast off in Stravinsky's famous 1913 ritual invocation "Le sacre du printemps", which deals with the "mystery of the great impulse of creative forces". The events described in the music are based on pagan images: in order to propitiate the god of spring, a girl is sacrificed and, in the end, like a seed, she is “buried in the bosom of the earth" – all set to music in a veritable orgy of rhythm.