Tagged with 'Elbphilharmonie'

He has always admired composer Robert Schumann and often drawn inspiration from his works: Jörg Widmann’s new piece, Schumannliebe (“Love for Schumann”), for voice and ensemble will have its world premiere at the Casa da Música in Porto, Portugal on October 4th, 2023. Baritone Matthias Goerne will perform alongside the Remix Ensemble under the direction of Peter Rundel. 

Yellow River is an extraordinary piano concerto: A politically drenched piece based on the cantata with the same name by Xian Xinghai. Under the musical direction of Renchang Fu and with Haiou Zhang at the piano, the concerto is coming to Nuremberg on October 8th and in Hamburg on October 10th.

Genesis – creation is the title of Toshio Hosokawa's new Violin Concerto which he wrote for violinist Veronika Eberle. As part of the International Music Festival Hamburg, the world premiere will take place on 19 May 2021, 8 pm local time (6 pm UTC), after the date had to be postponed multiple times. It will be live streamed on the YouTube channel of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg, Kent Nagano is conducting.

"Veronika Eberle gave birth to a baby last November. I composed the piece as a present for
her and her baby. In the concerto, the soloist represents a human being, while the orchestra is imagined as nature and the universe surrounding him. At the beginning, the orchestra repeats wave motions suggestive of amniotic fluid, then the melodic line of the violin solo (= life) is generated from the inside of ‘cradle’, and is developing while imitating melodies inside the orchestra, then becomes independent of it, conflicts with it, however, finally finds a harmony inside the orchestra and dissolves into it." Toshio Hosokawa

Toshio Hosokawa
Violin Concerto
Genesis · 18’
19 May 2021 | Hamburg (D)
Elbphilharmonie
Veronika Eberle, violin
Philharmonic State Orchestera Hamburg
Kent Nagano, conductor

Commissioned by Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra (SOČR) and Grafenegg Festival

• Toshio Hosokawa – composer profile


• Live Stream on YouTube


• Website of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg

 

Hans Werner Henze’s oratorio, Das Floß der Medusa, with a text by Ernst Schnabel, will be performed by the SWR Symphonieorchester and Peter Eötvös on 15 November at the Konzerthaus in Freiburg and again on 17 November at Hamburg Elphilharmonie. The work was inspired by the 1816 maritime disaster and shares a name with Théodore Géricault’s painting of the event.

In 1816, the French frigate Méduse ran aground off the west coast of Africa. A shortage of lifeboats meant a hastily constructed raft was used in an attempt to ferry 150 survivors to shore. However, soon after setting off on the 30 mile journey, it became clear that towing the raft was impractical and the decision was made to cut the connecting ropes. The rudderless and ill equipped raft was abandoned to its fate.

Henze uses the tragic events to explore the moment where morality, law and social convention dissolve. In today’s climate, the work resonates as a critique on the response to the refugee crisis in Europe, with parallels to the thousands of lives lost at sea.

Hans Werner Henze: Das Floß der Medusa: A fight for survival

The stage is divided in two between the living and the dead. On the side of the dead is a soprano who attempts to lure survivors with her siren song. Jean-Charles, a cabin boy, represents the living and their struggle to remain alive. In the course of the performance the chorus crosses the stage from the side of the living to the side of the dead. Charon, named after Hades’ ferryman in Greek mythology, is the narrator and slips frequently between the two worlds.

Henze transfers the mood and characters from Géricault’s iconic painting to his music, for example using the woodwind section to underscore the living chorus, with ‘breath like noises’ and screams. The journey to the side of the dead is accompanied by the string section.

I had Théodore Géricault’s magnificent painting, The Raft of the ‚Medusa‘, clearly in my mind’s eye when I started work on the music. The pyramid-like pile of human figures in the painting, which is now in the Louvre in Paris, is surmounted by our hero, the mulatto Jean-Charles, waving a fragment of tattered red cloth at a boat that is seen sailing past the distance and that signifies hope and perhaps also salvation – an idea present in our own piece from the very outset. – Hans Werner Henze

As part of ‘Elbphilharmonie+’ there will be a lecture-performance on 16 November featuring a string quartet made up of musicians from the SWR Symphonieorchester who will trace the experience of escape through the music of Béla Bartók and Emin František Burian interjected with readings from texts written by refugees. The concert featuring Henze’s Das Floß der Medusa will be broadcast on SWR 2 on 26 November. In March 2018, Dutch National Opera will present staged performances of the work.

 

• Hans Werner Henze – profile


• Das Floß der Medusa – workdetails


• Elbphilharmonie Hamburg - program information


• Konzerthaus Freiburg - programinformation

The success of his Rhapsody in Blue led the New York Symphony Society to commission a piano concerto from the young George Gershwin.

As Ferde Grofé had done the orchestration for Rhapsody, Concerto in F was Gershwin’s first attempt at orchestrating. Aware of his inexperience in this area, he hired an orchestra for the last phase of the compositional process in order to experiment with different orchestral sounds and textures.


Gershwin himself was the piano soloist at the world premiere of the concerto at Carnegie Hall New York in December 1925. The piece established Gershwin as one of the most important American composers of the 20^th century.

George Gershwin‘s Concerto in F: American Jazz cloaked in a classical garment

Originally entitled New York Concerto, Gershwin eventually changed the title to the more generic Concerto in F for piano and orchestra, reflecting his conscious desire to write absolute music, as opposed to the program music he had previously written. The piece is structured as a traditional concerto in three movements: slow – fast – slow.

Gershwin created his own American musical style with his Concerto, mixing jazz, Broadway songs, dance rhythms and late romantic harmonies. The syncopated Charleston rhythm is present in the first movement (Allegro alla breve), from which the solo piano emerges with the first theme. These two ideas are connected in the second movement (Adagio – Andante con moto) in the piano solo-cadenza. This movement is often described as a “Blues-Nocturne” because of its stylistic features. The third movement is heavily influenced by jazz, with Gershwin describing it as an “orgy of rhythms, starting violently and keeping to the same pace throughout.”

Many persons had thought that the Rhapsody was only a happy accident... I went out to show them that there was plenty more where that came from. I made up my mind to compose a piece of “absolute” music. The Rhapsody, as its title implied, was a blues impression. The Concerto would be unrelated to any program. – George Gershwin

A performance of Gershwin’s Concerto in F by the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra conducted by Christoph Eschenbach and soloist Tzimon Barto at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg will be given on 14 August.  Though this concert is now sold out, a public rehearsal of the program which includes Ravel’s La valse and Daphnis et Chloé, can be heard  in the ACO Thormannhalle Rendsburg on 13 August.

• George Gershwin - Profile


• Concerto in F - workdetails and score


• Concert in the Elbphilharmonie


• Public rehearsal

On 13 January 2017, Jörg Widmann’s new oratorio ARCHE will receive its premiere, marking the opening of the new Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg. Soprano Marlis Petersen and baritone Thomas E. Bauer will perform alongside the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra conducted by Kent Nagano, with the combined choral forces of the Staatsopernchor, the choir of the AUDI Jugendakademie and the Hamburger Alsterspatzen.



ARCHE centres on mankind’s pleas to an indifferent god, vulnerably revealing all their wishes, fears and hopes for a better world. Widmann selected a variety of texts from different centuries, including from poets Matthias Claudius and Friedrich Schiller, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and the Bible. Scored for two soloists, three choirs, organ and orchestra, the music is similarly varied, ranging from intimate tonal passages to complex choral textures that make full use of the work's impressive forces.

Jörg Widmanns ARCHE – Let There be Sound!

ARCHE begins with the first act “Fiat Lux/ Es werde Licht” (“Let there be Light”), in which two child narrators chronicle, with factual innocence and at times ironic alienation, the act of creation. In the second act “Die Sintflut” (“The Flood”) vast cascading masses of sound evoke the power of the flood, rendering the violence of its destruction almost physically perceptible. This is followed by a gentler third act “Liebe” (“Love”), but even before the praise of love has faded away a double murder of jealously is reported – a reminder that mankind is not even capable of protecting the precious resource of love from evil. An apocalypse ensues in the fourth act, wherein Widmann sets “Dies Irae” alongside with Schiller’s “Ode to Joy”, exploring life, death and hope for salvation; appealing for divine intervention. The “Dona eis requiem” changes in the last act to “Dona nobis pacem”, but the children’s choir demands that man assumes the responsibility for his survival himself, and only then will peace be possible with a loving God.

The Elbphilharmonie’s location overlooking the water, and its architecture reminiscent of ships and sails, inspired Widmann:

It is an ‘ark of culture’, where we as humans may find refuge with our happiness but also our suffering, especially in this very turbulent time. It is a refuge in a politically stormy sea, where art takes place, and where music takes place. I think it is fantastic that it was built; it also contains something sacred. – Widmann

During the three-week festival of events for the opening of the hall, another of Widmann’s works, Sonatina facile, will be premiered by Mitsuko Uchida on 18 January.

• Jörg Widmann - Profile


• ARCHE - Details


• Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

 

 

Photos:
- Elbphilharmonie Hamburg: Maxim Schulz, 2016.
- Jörg Widmann (right) and Kent Nagano: Hannes Rathjen, 2016.