This suite of five concerts at Munich’s Philharmonic Hall performed by the Münchner Philharmoniker, the Mariinsky Orchestra and several soloists, forms part of the MPhil 360° Festival. The MPhil 360° Festival is a new festival which marks the beginning of Valery Gergiev’s collaboration with the Münchner Philharmoniker. Core of the program of the festival’s first edition are the five piano concertos of Prokofiev who enter into a dialogue with history and modern age. All of Prokofiev’s piano concertos are complemented by works of the German musical literature. PROGRAM Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 5; Widmann: “Con Brio”, Concert Overture for Orchestra; Mozart: Clarinet Concerto in A major, KV 622
450 Years Staatskapelle Berlin
On the occasion of its 450th birthday, the Staatskapelle Berlin under the baton of its chief conductor Daniel Barenboim embarks on a journey through music history. With Wagner and Beethoven, two composers are represented who have shaped the Staatskapelle’s repertoire decisively, in both opera and symphonic works. The programme is complemented by advanced music from the 20th and 21st centuries by Boulez and Widmann, the latter having dedicated a newly composed work to the Staatskapelle. PROGRAM Boulez: Initiale for seven brass instruments; Wagner: Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg; Widmann:Zeitensprünge – 450 Takte für Orchester (World premiere of the commissioned work); Beethoven: Symphony No. 7
Opening Concert of the Pierre Boulez Concert Hall
A stellar lineup of artists, headed by Daniel Barenboim, comes together for the opening concert of the Pierre Boulez Saal, the new architectural highlight of the Barenboim-Said
Akademie in Berlin – “a masterpiece of its kind” (The New Yorker). Anna Prohaska and Jörg Widmann join Daniel Barenboim, “who plays with the sureness of a sleepwalker”
(Süddeutsche Zeitung), for Schubert’s lyrical scene Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, while the latter also partners with the Boulez Ensemble’s strings in Mozart’s Piano Quartet. Karim Said
and Michael Barenboim take on Berg’s Chamber Concerto, and Widmann performs his own Fantasy for Solo Clarinet. The programme is bookended by Boulez’ fanfare-like Initiale
and sur Incises, for three pianos, three harps, and three percussionists. “Absolutely beautiful!” (FAZ)
In the Maze – Jörg Widmann
Clarinettist, conductor and composer Jörg Widmann is working on a composition. He has been commissioned to write a large-scale trumpet concerto (“Towards Paradise”) for the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The film accompanies Widmann on this journey, from the very first drafts of the piece to the premiere performance, taking the audience through diverse psychic and sonic realms. Music takes on a life of its own in the moment of writing, believes Jörg Widmann. It assumes its own form, becoming a living being that forges its own path. As such, it remains a fragment, because it is not what he, the writer, had intended. For Widmann, the image that best describes this progression is a maze. We follow Jörg Widmann into his maze, reaching for the thread that runs through his life and work. Together with him, we experience the ups and downs, the euphoric moments as well as the moments of crisis that are brought about by the process of writing.
BBC Proms 2016: WEDO and Barenboim perform Widmann, Liszt, Wagner
Proms don’t come more stellar than this!”, raved The Independent about the WEDO’s performance at the BBC Proms. The concert opens with a rendition of Jörg Widmann’s overture Con brio. Martha Argerich continues with an “unforgettable performance” of Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1, dazzling with her “frighteningly precise” playing (The Guardian). As encore the two childhood friends join forces at the piano for a four handed rendition of Schubert’s Rondo in A “that for 12 minutes provides a glimpse of paradise” (The Standart) holding “6000 people spellbound” (The Times). Further repertoire includes Wagner’s Overtures to Tannhäuser and Meistersinger; Dawn, Siegfried’s Rhine Journey and Funeral March from Götterdämmerung et al.
Paavo Järvi conducts Escaich, Widmann & Saint-Saens
The spectacular new Rieger organ of the Philharmonie de Paris is inaugurated with solo, ensemble, and symphonic works starring Paavo Järvi at the rostrum of the Orchestre de Paris and Thierry Escaich, Titular Organist and with that successor of Maurice Duruflé at Paris Saint-Étienne-du-Mont. The new organ with close to 7000 handmade pipes, 15 meters high and 20 meters wide, with 91 stops on four manuals and pedal specially designed for the symphonic repertory, is heard for the first time at this festive performance. PROGRAM Escaich: Organ Improvisation; Widmann: Viola Concerto (World Premiere); Saint-Saens: Symphony No. 3 “Organ Symphony”
Nelsons conducts Bruckner and Widman
The Gewandhaus season 2017/18 celebrates two momentous occasions: the investiture of Andris Nelsons to the position of the 21st Gewandhauskapellmeister and the 275th anniversary of the Gewandhausorchester’s founding. This festive concert with Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 and a World Premiere of Jörg Widmann’s Partita promises to become one of the emotional highlights of the festival. PROGRAM Bruckner: Symphony No. 7; Widman: Partita
LSO: Harding conducts Dvorak and Widmann
Voices of nature and fabulous tales: Daniel Harding and viola player Antoine Tamestit explore the imaginary realms of Jörg Widmann and Antonin Dvorák. With the music of Antonín Dvorák, there’s always something unexpected going on beneath the gloriously tuneful surface. A gothic Czech folk-tale takes on a truly universal resonance; and an open-hearted celebration of the Bohemian countryside blossoms into something rapturous, in colors reminiscent of Strauss or Mahler. And since Dvorák was a viola player, what better way to set the mood than with the Viola Concerto by Jörg Widmann – the 21st century’s most playful (and inventive) descendant of that great Romantic tradition? ‘Even with the viola’s C-string alone, you can tell stories unimaginable on any other string instrument’, he says, and he wrote this piece, especially for Antoine Tamestit. Music that dreams and then dazzles, performed by artists who just love the sound it makes. Program: Widmann: Viola Concerto; Dvorák: In der Natur, The Golden Spinning Wheel