ConcertPulse
Award-winning lieder with Duo Lorenzen-Ekberg.The legendary concert singer and educator Dorothy Irving (1927–2018) left a powerful impression on the Swedish music scene. Her artistry was bold and meticulous, with a deep dedication to the expressive power of lyrics and music.Before they passed away, she and her husband Lars Fjellstedt founded a scholarship administered by the Royal Swedish Academy of Music to “promote and preserve the art of the lied.” The scholarship is now being presented for the second time and goes to Duo Lorenzen-Ekberg, comprising soprano Kathrin Lorenzen and pianist Oskar Ekberg: “for their breathtaking lightness and cooperative, playful and in-depth presentation of historic and human dimensions in a modern, international vocal repertoire, and for revealing the existential depth of Scandinavian lieder.”Kathrin Lorenzen, born in Flensburg in 1994, has become established as a popular soloist and concert vocalist in Germany and Scandinavia. In January 2024, she won the Royal Swedish Academy of Music’s Soloist Prize. In May 2024, Kathrin won second place and the audience prize in the international Mirjam Helin Competition in Helsinki, in competition with 485 singers from 57 countries.Oskar Ekberg, born in 1977, has been an in-demand soloist, chamber musician and orchestral musician nationally and internationally since his debut with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2004. He has garnered significant appreciation for his dedication and recordings of Swedish music, including all of Johan Helmich Roman’s harpsichord suites, earning him a nomination for a Grammis Award in the category of Best Classical Album.
A wind quintet is like a musical paintbox – just a handful of instruments, but the possibilities are limitless.Well, that’s what Mozart thought anyway: he believed his Piano and Wind Quintet was the best thing he ever wrote, and believe us, you’re about to hear why. But that’s just part of a concert crammed with energy, wit and wonder – whether it’s Paul Hindemith, partying hard in jazz-age Berlin or Valerie Coleman, unleashing raw creative fire in the 21st-century USA.Generously supported by TIOC Foundation
In 1909, Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) traveled on his first US tour. He brought along a newly written piece—Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor. He was the soloist at the premiere in New York, not knowing that he would emigrate to the US nine years later after the Russian Revolution.Piano Concerto No. 3 opens with a simple, melancholic melody, but during the next 45 minutes, the soloist must master some of the most spectacular music ever written for the piano. Few pianists tried it in the first years, but it gradually became more popular and performed. “I cannot imagine a more lively, problematic, human, artistically poignant and, in the best sense, dramatic figure … Mathis placed himself at the service of the powerful machinery of state and church and was apparently able to resist the pressures of the institutions.” These are the words Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) used to describe the Renaissance painter Matthias Grünewald, who inspired him to write a symphony and an opera with the title Mathis der Maler. The symphony is based on Grünewald’s most famous artwork, the Isenheim Altarpiece.Both artists bore witness to great upheavals - Grünewald lived through the German Peasants’ War in the 1520s, Hindemith during the rise of Nazism. Hindemith’s radical musical style, his provocative statements, and his wife’s Jewish background put him in a gradually more difficult position.In line with social developments, Hindemith in Mathis der Maler took a step in a more traditional direction, with elements of German folk tunes and music that may send the mind to Brahms and Wagner. The symphony was a great success with the public at its premiere in Berlin in 1934. ”Through whirling clouds, waltzing couples may be faintly distinguished. The clouds gradually scatter: one sees (...) an immense hall peopled with a whirling crowd. The scene is gradually illuminated. The light of the chandeliers bursts forth (...) in an imperial court, about 1855.”This is the introduction Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) wrote in the sheet music for La Valse. Already in 1906, he started on a tribute to Vienna, the waltz, and the “waltz king” Johann Strauss Jr.. La Valse premiered in Paris in the fall of 1920 as a standalone orchestral work. The recently ended World War I ended Vienna as the capital of a great empire. In Ravel, the waltz undergoes an extreme transformation that ends in a breakdown. Many in the audience experienced the play as a description of the demise of pre-war culture.
Liszt composed tone poems about Orpheus, who overcomes death with music, and Prometheus, who inspires humanity with art. Orpheus's music is harmonious, while Prometheus's is dissonant, reflecting his suffering. Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto, sometimes called the "Orpheus Concerto," may be inspired by Orpheus. Leó Weiner, a Liszt admirer, orchestrated Liszt's B minor Sonata for the Liszt centenary in 1956.
The illustrious circle of »Rising Stars« 2024/25, selected from the great European concert halls, includes clarinettist Carlos Ferreira – although the title of a Rising Star almost seems too small. Solo clarinettist of the Orchestre National de France, prize winner of the famous ARD Music Competition and recipient of the solo artist prize from the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern – the Portuguese star is already high in the sky! Ferreira presents a broadly-based programme that he designed together with pianist Pedro Emanuel Pereira. Both of them had already recorded an album together in 2023 and, as a well-functioning duo, carry off the Hamburg audience into the most diverse soundscapes. The spectrum of the evening ranges from the supple elegance of Claude Debussy via the warm melancholy of Johannes Brahms to the charming preposterousness of Francis Poulenc. If that is not enough variety for anyone, they can look forward to brand new music by young Chinese composer Lanqing Ding with the commissioned work for Carlos Ferreira.
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!
Mandolinist, singer, songwriter and composer Chris Thile is described by The Guardian as 'that rare being: an all-round musician who can settle into any style, from bluegrass to classical.'
Grammy-winning musical phenomenon Jacob Collier will perform with a UK orchestra for the very first time in January 2025, joining forces with the 50-piece orchestra Britten Sinfonia.
A concert workshop in Freiburg's E-Werk will feature conductor Oscar Jockel explaining Pierre Boulez's "Polyphonie X" with the SWR Symphony Orchestra. This piece, a scandal at its 1951 premiere, connects Boulez's early and later styles. Following the analysis and full performance, the concert includes Webern's arrangement of Bach's "Fuga Ricerata" and Webern's Symphony Op. 21, highlighting polyphony and musical development, both crucial to Boulez's work. A second performance of "Polyphonie X" concludes the evening.
With Gustav Holst’s atmospheric 1916 orchestral suite The Planets, Daniel Harding embarks on a cosmic musical journey through our solar system. Each of the seven planets has its own musical character, from rugged Mars to mystical Neptune. Holst was greatly inspired by Arnold Schoenberg’s Five Orchestral Pieces, which oscillate intriguingly between late Romanticism and Modernism. Completing the programme, Brett Dean’s Komarov’s Fall was commissioned by the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2006 as a musical “asteroid” to Holst’s Planets.
Stefan Wolpe was forced to flee Berlin after the National Socialists came to power, as he had publicly positioned himself against the Nazis as a convinced communist and artistic director of the agitprop theater “Truppe 31”. After an odyssey via Prague, Zurich and Vienna, where he took composition lessons with Anton Webern, he emigrated to Palestine with his partner, the Romanian pianist Irma Schoenberg. In Jerusalem, Irma was able to teach piano at the newly founded conservatory and Stefan also received a position as a composition teacher in 1935. His students there included Herbert Brün, Chaim Alexander and Wolf Rosenberg, who had emigrated to Palestine with his family in 1936. We will hear works by Wolpe from the Jerusalem period as well as early piano works by Wolf Rosenberg and the 2nd String Quartet, played by pianist Angelika Nebel and the Seneca Quartet. Pamela Rosenberg, the composer's widow, will be the guest of the evening.In cooperation with musica reanimata – Förderverein zur Wiederentdeckung NS-verfolgter Komponisten und ihrer Werke e.V.
In their first joint programme, Akamus and the award-winning Basel vocal ensemble Voces Suaves present musical highlights from the generation of German composers before Johann Sebastian Bach and thus the impressive musical world into which he was born. The programme includes works by the extended Bach family as well as by composers who are largely unknown today and who preceded the later Thomaskantor in his important positions in Mühlhausen, Weimar and Leipzig. From the oeuvre of Johann Sebastian Bach, the double-choir motet ‘Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf’ will be performed..
"A trickle of youth": Schumann's phrase about Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream has not aged a day. And then we have the Elgar's Concerto, entrusted to the bow of Frank Peter Zimmermann, where magic is met by mystery…
In his mid-forties, James Gaffigan is already music director of two major opera houses: the Komische Oper in Berlin and the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia. For his debut with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the American conductor has chosen dramatic incidental music for the programme. Gaffigan opens the concert with the beginning of Modest Mussorgsky’s opera »Khovanshchina«. It is a gloomy portrait of the mores of Tsarist Russia, but the composer gave the introduction the idyllic title »Dawn on the Moskva«: soaring string sounds merge into gentle flute tones, which are gradually joined by other wind instruments.
Oum El Ghaït Benessahraoui, a Moroccan singer, combats stereotypes against Muslim women and Arabs through her music. Her charismatic stage presence, adorned in vibrant attire, evokes a queen from Arabian Nights. Yet, her music blends Moroccan sounds with jazz, soul, and electronic elements. Her lyrics and music, grounded in the present, reflect modern Morocco and address contemporary issues.
Inspired by Clara Schumann’s encounter with several of her female contemporaries, Franco-Belgian soprano Marianne Croux, together with Pierre and Théo Fouchenneret, explores a Romantic Europe torn between passionate fervour and modernist dazzle.
Conductor Klaus Mäkelä says that a concert is like a journey through time. The composers featured on this programme were clearly inspired by older music. Robert Schumann had just suffered a nervous breakdown when he wrote his Second Symphony, a work in which he documents his recovery and overtly draws on the music of Bach, Haydn and Beethoven.Benjamin Britten’s music, in which the influence of older English masters is always palpable, is also in dialogue with the past. His Violin Concerto juxtaposes tradition with present-day circumstances: the year was 1939, and the threat of war imminent. With her extraordinary aptitude for capturing mood and atmosphere, violinist Janine Jansen is the perfect interpreter.Klaus Mäkelä says, ‘In Schumann’s music I always feel an aspect of the past, tradition, history. Britten too admired tradition. We make a combination with works from the 17th century by Purcell and Dowland, to prepare the atmosphere of the later works by Britten and Schumann, which contain the past. I think the music benefits from it. The cathedral-like, almost sacred atmosphere of Dowland and Purcell enhances those aspects in Schumann and Britten, putting their works in a different light.’
For children 3–5 years old.Get close to the musicians in the Grünewald Hall – and discover the orchestra's brass instruments in a classical concert with listening games, together with a music teacher. After this approx. 30-minute concert, there is a chance to try out different instruments in the foyer.
For our "Expedition TIRILI" we usually travel light and without an elaborate stage set to the daycare centres of Berlin and Brandenburg. Now the "Expedition TIRILI" is also making a stop in the rank foyer of the Deutsche Oper Berlin for a few play dates and invites you to experience the sounds on the sand-coloured carpet and on brightly coloured seat cushions. Children are a great audience: open, curious, enthusiastic. They miss neither curtain nor orchestra pit and have no fixed idea of how an audience should behave. They are born explorers. And two musicians accompany them on their musical-theatrical voyage of discovery. Together they ask themselves: How are sounds created? What is music made of? Who or what is this mysterious TIRILI? For "Expedition TIRILI" we worked together with children from the Kastanienallee day-care centre in cooperation with TUKI. In the run-up, we experimented with sounds and themes in the nursery. This process flowed into the development of the production.
Music is shaped not only by diverse tones and melodies but also by incredibly versatile rhythms and tempos. From spirited to melancholic, slow to fast, we explore the rhythmic variety in music. Clap, sneak, and dance along in the children's concert Takt auf, Takt ab!
For children 3–5 years old.Get close to the musicians in the Grünewald Hall – and discover the orchestra's brass instruments in a classical concert with listening games, together with a music teacher. After this approx. 30-minute concert, there is a chance to try out different instruments in the foyer.
Commissioned by the Istanbul Music Festival, pianist and composer Fazıl Say created "Dünya Anne" (Mother Earth), a song cycle based on Turkish women poets, to mark the Turkish Republic's centennial. The cycle reflects on Turkey's past and present and explores themes of inner struggles, peace, kindness, light, and enduring hope. Serenad Bağcan, whose voice Say had "searched for years," performs the songs.
Welcome to the second instalment of our new series Ausklang! Each time, you can experience a short programme with a single orchestral work – but one that has it all. This time it’s Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite The Planets: a musical journey through our solar system, conducted by Daniel Harding. Each of the seven planets has its own musical character, from rugged Mars to mystical Neptune. Unusual orchestral effects are employed, inspiring many subsequent film music composers. After the concert, we invite you to enjoy a free drink in the foyer.
Liszt composed tone poems about Orpheus, who overcomes death with music, and Prometheus, who inspires humanity with art. Orpheus's music is harmonious, while Prometheus's is dissonant, reflecting his suffering. Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto, sometimes called the "Orpheus Concerto," may be inspired by Orpheus. Leó Weiner, a Liszt admirer, orchestrated Liszt's B minor Sonata for the Liszt centenary in 1956.
