In 2013, Jörg Widmann composed his first—and to date his only—song cycle. Das heiße Herz (“The Hot Heart”) is based on the works of a wide range of authors, including Clemens Brentano, Heinrich Heine, Klabund, and Peter Härtling, as well as lesser known poems from Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Christian Immler and Andreas Frese, who have won acclaim for their collaboration on the cycle’s premiere recording, perform Widmann’s songs opposite works by Schumann and Mahler.
Founded in 2019, Trio Orelon has been one of the best-kept secrets of the chamber music scene for some time, but that is about to change: ever since winning the ARD Competition in 2023, the three musicians have received international acclaim and invitations to some of the world’s most prestigious concert halls. Consisting of Marco Sanna (Italy), Arnau Rovira i Bascompte (Spain), and Judith Stapf (Germany), an alumna of the Barenboim-Said Akademie, the ensemble makes its Pierre Boulez Saal debut with an ambitious program of works by Schumann, Weinberg, and Rihm.
The music of Robert Schumann has long been a major influence on Jörg Widmann’s own compositions. Joined by Sir András Schiff and Antoine Tamestit, he now brings three of Schumann’s works to the Pierre Boulez Saal that draw inspiration from poetic and non-musical ideas and reflect the Romantic fascination with the world of fairy tales. Alban Berg’s aphoristic Four Pieces of 1913 provide a striking contrast. The program concludes with Mozart’s “Kegelstatt” Trio, the historical model for the unusual combination of clarinet, viola, and piano.
Last season, Julia Hamos made a highly successful debut performing Ligeti’s virtuosic Piano Concerto with the Boulez Ensemble. For her first solo recital, the young Hungarian-American pianist, who studied with Sir András Schiff at the Barenboim-Said Akademie, has chosen rarely heard pieces by Kurtág and Janáček, in a program bookended by Mozart’s A-minor Sonata K. 310 and Schumann’s monumental C-major Fantasy.
Mignon, Ophelia, and Mary, Queen of Scots—these three towering figures of literature and history provide the inspiration for an evening of words and music created by Christiane Karg, Malcolm Martineau, and actor Helmut Mooshammer. In addition to Goethe settings by Beethoven, Schubert, Wolf, Duparc, and Josephine Lange and Ophelia songs by Brahms, Strauss, Chausson, and Wolfgang Rihm, the program also includes Robert Schumann’s Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart, the composer’s final vocal cycle written in 1852.
Many composers in history have found inspiration in the fragile and mysterious world of plants and flowers. For his solo recital, Kirill Gerstein presents a diverse selection of piano works from three centuries by com posers ranging from Robert Schumann to Thomas Adès. Percy Grainger’s paraphrase of Tchaikovsky’s famous “Waltz of the Flowers” provides the link to Maurice Ravel’s La Valse and the Waltzes Toward Civilization by the young Spanish composer Francisco Coll.
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