The first performance at the Lucerne Festival of the Berliner Philharmoniker with their designated chief conductor Kirill Petrenko – Kirill Petrenko and the Berliner Philharmoniker in Lucerne were joined by the Chinese hypervirtuosa Yuja Wang in Sergei Prokofiev’s most popular Piano Concerto, the spirited No. 3. The program began in the world of Persian fairy-tales with Paul Dukas’s ballet score to “La Péri” from 1911, which recounts the story of a good fairy who is half-angel, half-human. And this Impressionist-flavored piece by no means needs to yield ground to Dukas’s better-known “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” … Kirill Petrenko feels extremely devoted to Austrian composer Franz Schmidt, one of the last of the Romantics, who had to endure a traumatic experience when his only daughter, Emma, passed away in March 1932. He subsequently wrote a kind of Requiem with his Fourth Symphony, which includes elegiac laments, a wide-ranging funeral march, and, at the end, a celebration of farewell: “a dying in beauty,” as Schmidt said, “with the whole of one’s life passing in review.”
Lucerne Festival 2018: Chailly conducts Ravel
A breathtaking all-Ravel program with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly to celebrate the orchestra’s 15th anniversary. Founded in 2003 by Claudio Abbado, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra quickly grew into much more than “just” another festival orchestra. The incredible clarity and intensity of this orchestra, the wonderful timbres that make it so extraordinary – there is no program more suitable for experiencing and showcasing its uniqueness than the concert with works by Maurice Ravel. “That ballet music is a precursor of film music is seldom heard as directly as in the long camera shots through wide and whirling soundscapes.” Luzerner Zeitung PROGRAM Ravel: Valses nobles et sentimentales; La Valse; Daphnis et Chloé – Suites Nos. 1 & 2; Boléro
For the Love of Music in Georgia – The Paliashvili Music School in Tbilisi
The Georgian Republic: An orthodox multi-ethnic mix in the wild Caucasus, the borderland between the East and West. The Paliashvili Music School for gifted children is located on a hill above the capital city of Tbilisi. The plaster is crumbling, and the stairs are riddled with holes. Hardly any instrument can be tuned anymore, and many teachers are so old that they could be the great-grandparents of their students. Those who are allowed to step through the battered main entrance after the strict entrance examination do so with pride because former Paliashvili students regularly conquer the world’s stages. The violinist Lisa Batiashvili and pianist Khatia Buniatishvili were taught here. The children dream of such a success, their parents all the more so. An observant and character-based documentary about a magical place. A film about growing up and aging, about farewells and new beginnings, about great dreams and the art of improvisation.
The Unanswered Ives
The first film about the most famous “weekend composer”: Charles Ives. As a teenager, he composes dance melodies as well as church hymns, becoming the youngest organist of all Connecticut at age 14. As a natural talent in sports, he is appointed captain of the football team at the elite Yale University before the former music student becomes the most successful life insurer in the United States. Charles Ives (1874-1954) is perhaps the most famous “weekend composer” of musical history – and is regarded today as the first composer of the modern age in America. The Unanswered Ives is the first film about Charles Ives and a profound exploration of this extraordinary, multi-faceted personality. The documentary shed light on Ives’ life and work in all its facets and inconsistencies.
Rudolstadt Festival 2016 – Anoushka Shankar
Anoushka Shankar was born in London but mainly raised in San Diego, California. She was seven when she first got lessons on the sitar from her prominent father, Ravi Shankar. She grew up with Indian classical music but also but western pop and youth culture which today results in her wish to cross borders and to free the sitar from its alleged limitations as an instrument for Hindustani classical music.
Gidon Kremer – Finding your own voice
He is a violinist of the century who is a stranger to entertainment. He is an exception in an industry that is aimed currently at market value, marketing and mass appeal: Gidon Kremer is one of the most exciting artist personalities of our time. Gidon Kremer – Finding your own voice is a calm and thoughtful portrait of the great violinist and intellectual. Over the course of one year, Paul Smaczny accompanied Gidon Kremer with the camera, observing him with his Kremerata Baltica Chamber Orchestra in Paris and his native Riga, and as a soloist in Moscow and Tokyo, as well as encountering him as a socially and politically active person. Gidon Kremer – Finding your own voice seeks to find out what drives a person like Gidon Kremer, what lies behind making music, where the deep meaning of music lies hidden. A film about a great intellectual who sees himself as a mediator of values whose ethos is alien to, indeed contrary to, any form of narcissism and profit-seeking.
Jordi Savall – Jerusalem
It is one of the oldest existing cities in the world and at the same time one of the most contested: Jerusalem. All three major monotheistic religions refer to it as the “Holy City”. Jerusalem has been and still is the center of fierce conflicts for centuries. With his ensembles Hespèrion XXI and La Capella Reial de Catalunya, however, Jordi Savall is already making this wish come true in a musical way. Together with guest musicians from Israel, Palestine, Syria, Armenia, Greece, and Turkey, they trace the history of Jerusalem authentically and in a touching manner. Jordi Savall places Islam, Judaism, and Christianity on equal footing, allowing the musicians to sow a seed of hope for peace.
Nelsons conducts Mozart and Tchaikovsky
This concert is devoted to Andris Nelsons’ assumption of the position of Gewandhauskapellmeister. It marks the beginning of the highly promising Tchaikovsky cycle by Andris Nelsons and the Gewandhausorchester. Andris Nelsons: “Being appointed as the next Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester is a completely overwhelming honour. This extraordinary orchestra and its wonderful musicians are unique in so many respects, and particularly in their creation of an exceptional sound world based on outstanding tradition that is, at its heart, inspirational.” PROGRAM Mozart: Symphony K. 550; Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.6
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
Andris Nelsons’ Inaugural Concert – Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
A new era in Leipzig has just begun: Andris Nelsons started his tenure as the 21st Gewandhaus conductor. The inaugural concert combined the world premiere of Relief, a new piece by composer Steffen Schleiermacher, with one of the most important premieres in the history of the orchestra. In March 1842, the Gewandhausorchester performed the famous Scottish Symphony by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy under the direction of the composer himself for the first time. In choosing this repertoire, Andris Nelsons pays tribute to the grand history of the city of Leipzig and its Gewandhausorchester. Alban Berg’s violin concerto, performed by Latvian Baiba Skride, works as a link between the decades. After Andris Nelsons’ first concert as the 21st Gewandhaus Kapellmeister, the Financial Times states: “the new partnership brims with artistic promise.” PROGRAM Schleiermacher: Relief for Orchestra; Berg: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra; Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Symphony No.3