In 2018, marking the exact 100th anniversary of the Armistice ending World War 1, the all-star World Orchestra for Peace gave two UNESCO designated performances of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Symbolically one in each of the UK and Germany – for the BBC Proms in London and for the Würth Music Foundation in Künzelsau. Founded in 1995 by Sir Georg Solti to reaffirm, in his words, “the unique strength of music as an ambassador for peace”, leading players from the world’s finest orchestras gave this performance at ‘the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month’, 100 years after the guns fell silent in 1918. The performance is preceded by moving words of welcome and introduction from Prof. Würth and Lady Solti, both highlighting the need for brotherhood and joy amongst all nations, as reflected in the words of Schiller’s Ode in the choral finale.
UNESCO Concert for Peace
Sir Georg Solti’s unique “all-star” World Orchestra for Peace, with Donald Runnicles conducting a quartet of world-class soloists, chorus members of Bayerischer Rundfunk and the Bayerischer Chorakademie, give a commemorative performance of Beethoven’s legacy to universal peace and brotherhood. They are joined by players of the newly-formed Würth Philharmoniker to add a touching significance on this occasion of remembrance; that the future after any war lies in the hands of the surviving younger generation. Recorded at the exact ’11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month’, when the guns fell silent and World War 1 came to an end in 1918. PROGRAM Beethoven: Symphony No. 9
Bayreuth Festival 2022: Das Rheingold
This new production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival was the opera event of the 2022 Festival summer. Young director Valentin Schwarz reimagines the mythical story in the present day and tells a gripping family saga in the world of the rich and powerful. The musical direction is in the hands of Cornelius Meister. In Das Rheingold, the antagonists Wotan and Alberich are hostile twin brothers and it is not the gold from the Rhine that is stolen at the outset, but a child, emphasizing the fact that dynasties are always overshadowed by the question of who will one day inherit power.