A mesmerising programme celebrating the richness of British music, including Vaughan Williams' Tallis Fantasia, directed by Guildhall School alumna Candida Thompson.
EFPI FILMPHILHARMONIE PRESENTATION Film Copyright © Park Circus Limited Musik Copyright © Sewell/Kay Edition The film will be shown in the original version with German subtitles.
The Symphoniker Hamburg’s second VielHarmonie concert will live up to its name, as there will be plenty of harmony to discover. When the composer Caroline Shaw was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2013, she was not only one of only a few women, but also the youngest ever winner at the age of just 30. She originally wrote her »Entr’acte« for quartet as a witty reaction to hearing Haydn’s last completed quartet, but in 2014 she adapted the work for string orchestra in the version heard in this concert. William Walton’s Violin Concerto was premiered in December 1939 by Jascha Heifetz, who had commissioned the work and to whom it is dedicated. The English composer then revised it in 1944. The concerto opens with the slowest movement, the first theme of which is labelled »sognando« (dreaming). In the second movement, presto, a tarantella tells of an experience Walton had while composing in 1938, when he was actually bitten by a tarantula in Ravello, Italy. He himself smilingly calls this passage »rather gaga, I can say, and of dubious decency«. The rondo finale finally brings romantic-expressive expressiveness and brilliant virtuosity to a climax.
The BBC Singers join forces once more with their Artist in Association Abel Selaocoe, for a concert of music for the Christmas season from around the world.
Notos Quartet
Our organ series starts with one of the most interesting organists of our time: Richard Gowers, still only 29 old, discovered his passion for music as a choirboy at King’s College, Cambridge. Trained in Cambridge, London and Stuttgart, he has travelled internationally as a soloist and has also been Director of Music at St Georgeʼs, Hanover Square in London since 2023. Together with the brass section of the Berliner Philharmoniker, he will perform an opulent, late-romantic programme, including the passionate love scene from Richard Strauss’ opera Feuersnot and Franz Liszt’s heroic final tribute to his friend Chopin, Funérailles.
The organ in the Philharmonie, which was built in 1965 by the Schuke organ builders, is one of the most important concert hall organs in the world, with its 6,500 pipes and 90 stops. It is not only heard in symphonic repertoire, in works such as Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, but also in the popular series of organ matinées presented by internationally acclaimed virtuosos. This instrument is one of the Friends’ most important projects: they financed a complete refurbishment between 2010 and 2012. During the past season, however, the electronic system, with which the various stops are called up in a matter of seconds, refused to do its job. Since entire key segments failed and the instrument could no longer be used, a renovation was urgently needed: it will be carried out during the summer break in 2023 and again financed by the Friends. At this organ matinée, we would like to present the “queen of instruments” with its new brilliance and sound – and offer you an exciting look at what goes on inside.
Wherever violinist María Dueñas (born in Granada in 2002) appears, audience and critics alike are full of enthusiasm. She is rightly perceived as an exceptional talent: the musician with mixed Austrian and Spanish roots impresses not only with an astonishing artistic maturity and a beautiful tone, but also with the cadenzas that she composes herself. After she won first prize at the 2021 Yehudi Menuhin Competition, Deutsche Grammophon immediately gave her an exclusive recording contract. She has devoted her first album to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto – the work she is playing in this concert. She is accompanied by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with its newly-appointed chief conductor Kazuki Yamada, who follows in the footsteps of several great predecessors: Sir Simon Rattle, Andris Nelsons and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla.
This season Tabea Zimmermann, the BRSO’s artist-in-residence, will present an entire series of special concertos for her instrument, the viola. One is William Walton’s Viola Concerto, composed for Lionel Tertis in 1928-29 at the suggestion of the English conductor Thomas Beecham. Tertis, however, felt unequal to its severe demands, and the première was entrusted to Paul Hindemith, a violist who had already written several pieces for his own use. This rarely heard composition will now be played by one of the supreme violists of our time, forming an exciting foil to Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra of 1943. The conductor is the seasoned Bartók specialist Iván Fischer.
This season Tabea Zimmermann, the BRSO’s artist-in-residence, will present an entire series of special concertos for her instrument, the viola. One is William Walton’s Viola Concerto, composed for Lionel Tertis in 1928-29 at the suggestion of the English conductor Thomas Beecham. Tertis, however, felt unequal to its severe demands, and the première was entrusted to Paul Hindemith, a violist who had already written several pieces for his own use. This rarely heard composition will now be played by one of the supreme violists of our time, forming an exciting foil to Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra of 1943. The conductor is the seasoned Bartók specialist Iván Fischer.
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