Just a few weeks before his 90th birthday, Herbert Blomstedt gifted himself a special birthday present: conducting Bach’s Mass in B Minor, in the Leipzig Thomaskirche – the composer’s former workplace. According to Blomstedt, Bach’s last complete vocal work is the climax of his creativity and is one of the most important works in his life: “It is like a reflection of doubt. It is enormously powerful music in the same way that a wedge is enormously powerful.” For Peter Wollny, director of the Bach-Archiv Leipzig, Bach’s magnum opus is “without doubt the most intellectually and musically varied and challenging of Bach’s compositions” and “one of the greatest achievements of Western culture.” The concert closed the Bachfest Leipzig 2017 and was performed by the Gewandhausorchester, the Dresdner Kammerchor, and the soloists Christina Landshamer, Elisabeth Kulman, Wolfram Lattke and Luca Pisaroni.
Andris Nelsons conducts Dvorak
When Nelsons steps up to the podium of the Gewandhausorchester in March 2018 as its new musical director, Leipzig will indeed undergo a makeover. Apart from Felix Mendelssohn, his famous predecessor, he is the youngest conductor in the history of the orchestra beingthen only 37 years old. In this program Nelsons focuses on Dvorák – the “Otello” overture is followed by extracts from his opera Rusalka. Nelsons’ spouse, Kristine Opolais, takes over the arias of the title role, which she has already performed at the New York Met and the Bavarian State Opera. The fact that Nelsons also selected Dvorák’s 9th “From The New World” can be seen as a programmatic omen: Nelsons and the Gewandhausorchester now enter new territory, so to speak, on a joint musical journey.
Blomstedt conducts Beethoven
More than 200 years after its premiere at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the famous trio Isabelle Faust, Jean-Guihen Queyras and Martin Helmchen have congenially mastered the artistic challenge of Beethoven’s gemstone. Under Herbert Blomstedt’s sensitive direction, the soloists unite chamber music intimacy together with virtuoso sophistication – and prove once again that the Triple Concerto is an unduly underestimated, much too rarely programmed masterpiece. The composer’s fifth symphony – indeed, the hit of classical music – is better known. In Leipzig, however, Blomstedt succeeds in achieving an entirely new perspective of this work. In the culmination of his three-year, intensive reenactment of Beethoven’s cosmos, the impressive sound that characterizes the Swedish grand seigneur’s conducting is heralded by transparency rather than showmanship, relevance instead of pathos, and tenderness in place of sentimentality.
Riccardo Chailly – Mahler Cycle
The complete Mahler symphonies with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig conducted by Riccardo Chailly recorded at the Gewandhaus Leipzig. Symphony No. 2 in C minor: 96’ min / / Symphony No. 3 (available in 2015) / Symphony No. 4 in G major: 62’ min / Symphony No. 5: 74′ min / Symphony No. 6: 87′ min / Symphony No. 8 in E flat major: 93’ min / Symphony No. 9: 86′ min.
Andris Nelsons conducts Mahler 2
At the Leipzig Mahler Festival 2023, the Gewandhausorchester under the baton of Music Director Andris Nelsons and together with soloists Nicola Hillebrand and Gerhild Romberger as well as the MDR-Rundfunkchor, present a rousing performance of Gustav Mahler’s Second (“Resurrection”), gauging the full rollercoaster of musical extremes between death and resurrection.
St. John Passion
In 2024, J. S. Bach’s “St John Passion” celebrates 300 years since its creation. To celebrate this milestone, the Thomanerchor and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under Thomaskantor Andreas Reize present the masterpiece at St. Thomas Church Leipzig in its original version, together with a star cast of soloists and Julian Prégardien as the evangelist.
Lang Lang & Gina Alice play Saint-Saëns
Husband-and-wife team Lang Lang and Gina Alice join Andris Nelsons and members of the Gewandhausorchester for a very special performance of Saint-Saëns’s ever-popular Carnival of the Animals. The humorous suite was composed with fun in mind, and Saint-Saëns wouldn’t allow it to be performed in public during his lifetime, lest it undermine his reputation as a serious composer. It went on, however, to become one of his best-loved works. Lang Lang is the soloist in Saint-Saëns’s scintillating Piano Concerto No.2, joining the Gewandhausorchester and Gewandhauskapellmeister Andris Nelsons. PROGRAM Saint-Saëns: Carnival of the Animals, Piano Concerto No.2
Nelsons conducts Bach & Saint-Saëns
Chinese superstar Lang Lang is the soloist in Saint-Saëns’s scintillating Piano Concerto No.2, joining the Gewandhausorchester and Gewandhauskapellmeister Andris Nelsons. One of the composer’s most popular works, the second concerto was written in just 17 days in the spring of 1868 and was once humorously described as “beginning like Bach and ending like Offenbach”. Its different styles certainly offer the virtuoso pianist the opportunity to display all sides of his or her technique – as Lang Lang does to scintillating effect here. The Bach-inspired first movement, meanwhile, provides the inspiration for the rest of the programme, which features rare and fascinating J.S. Bach orchestrations by Mahler, Elgar, Reger and Joachim Raff. PROGRAM Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No.2; Bach: orchestrations by Mahler, Elgar, Reger and Joachim Raff
Nelsons conducts Mendelssohn & Schumann
Andris Nelsons and the Gewandhausorchester bring a programme rich in Leipzig’s unrivalled musical heritage to the Seoul Arts Center. Felix Mendelssohn, one of Nelsons’s celebrated predecessors as Gewandhauskapellmeister, is represented by his concert overture “Die schöne Melusine” and his atmospheric Symphony No. 3 “Scottish”, inspired by his travels in Britain in 1829 and premiered at the Gewandhaus in 1842. Three years later, Robert Schumann completed his piano concerto, one of the most popular concertos in the repertoire, and that work completes the programme here, performed by Seong-Jin Cho, one of the most celebrated pianists of his generation. PROGRAM Schumann:
Bach 300 – Tribute to Bach
An array of musical stars converges in Leipzig to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach taking up his appointment as Kantor at the city’s iconic Thomaskirche – a post that he occupied for more than a quarter of a century, covering a period in which he created many of his greatest works. Among those performing on a special open-air stage in the city’s market square are pianist Lang Lang, violinist Daniel Hope, cellist Sophie Kauer and oboist Albrecht Mayer, joined by the Thomanerchor and the Gewandhausorchester under current Thomaskantor Andreas Reize. Join us for what promises to be an unforgettable celebration!