Human Requiem is a concert and dance performance created by German director Jochen Sandig and choreographer Sasha Waltz. It is based on Johannes Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, which Sandig followed to the letter and at the same time transformed into an extraordinary concert event featuring 60 singers of the Rundfunkchor Berlin, soprano Marlis Petersen and baritone Benjamin Appl, Angela Gassenhuber and Philip Mayers on the piano, as well as three dancers of the dance company Sasha Waltz & Guests. Set at the ancient sanctuary of Eleusis, the performance becomes an open communal space of collective catharsis, where text and body, space and sound, merge into a single work of art. The production was awarded the Classical:NEXT Innovation Award, while the New York Times acclaimed it as “an anthem for our time”.
Theodor
“The World Premiere of ‘Theodor’ involved you emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually with effective singing, convincing acting, taut libretto, and intuitive, haunting music” (Opera Now, Critics’ Choice) The opera Theodor intertwines two key periods in Theodor Herzl’s life. In one, a disillusioned, older Herzl flees his failed marriage and a world filled with hate, haunted by the Dreyfus Affair. In the other, a young Herzl, proud of joining a nationalist student union, looks toward a promising future. As these timelines converge, both versions of Herzl struggle with the desire to belong and escape their inner isolation, each seeking to create a new reality for himself just before he transforms into a legend. Theodor is the first opera by Israel born composer Yonatan Cnaan. His cinematic music contains references to Chopin and Kurt Weill, for example, but also to early Jewish composers like Sasha Argov. An “excellent” cast of twelve leading Israeli singers, among them Oded Reich in the title role and Anat Czarny in the role of his wife Julie, makes the production a “roaring success” and a “must-see” (The Jerusalem Post).
Pierre-Laurent Aimard in Tokyo
“A brilliant musician and an extraordinary visionary” (Wall Street Journal) French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard is widely acclaimed as an authority in music of our time while recognized also for shedding fresh light on music of the past. His international schedule of concerts and recordings is complemented by a career-long commitment to teaching, giving concert lectures and workshops worldwide. In this recital, a special concert for music students given at the Tokyo University of the Arts, the pianist performs works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Schubert and György Kurtág.
Filippo Gorini – The Art Of Fugue Explored
A series modelled on the structure of J.S. Bach’s monumental work of piano literature, The Art of Fugue Explored takes each counterpoint as a starting point for conversations between pianist Filippo Gorini and eminent personalities of the contemporary world, to discover the many sides of Bach’s poetic and its influences on today’s culture. The 14 episodes, or Counterpoints, feature a variety of renowned experts from around the world: Alexander Polzin, Alfred Brendel, Peter Sellars, Frank Gehry, Steven Isserlis, Aleksandr Sokurov, Leila Getz, Alice Mado Proverbio, Dominique Edde, Marcus De Sautoy, Sasha Waltz, George Benjamin.
Vladimir Jurowski conducts The Seven Last Words of Christ
“Essentially all thinking” consisted of “relating things to each other”, Arnold Schönberg once said. Conductor Vladimir Jurowski, born in Moscow, with Russian-Ukrainian roots, who emigrated to Berlin at the age of 18, has now curated and conducted a concert that is a “thinking” concert in this sense: it sets musical present and history in vibration, 1787 and 2023, but at the same time also feelings and thoughts, sounds and words. The main work of the evening is Joseph Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross. But Haydn’s passion music isn’t performed as a complete whole. The seven movements are performed in alternation with six short orchestral pieces commissioned for this concert from composers based in countries where war or serious political crises are currently raging: Ukraine, Iran, but also Belarus and Russia. “Powerful, speaking music throughout” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)
The Odeonsplatz Concert 2023 – Lang Lang & Orozco-Estrada
Classical music in a unique atmosphere, with top-class ensembles, conductors and soloists on one of the most magnificent squares in Europe are the ingredients for the success story of “Klassik am Odeonsplatz”. Since its founding in 2000, the open-air has become a firmly established highlight of Munich’s cultural life, attracting 16,000 music fans every year. This edition features piano superstar Lang Lang and charismatic Colombian conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada. Their can’t-miss program is made up exclusively of high Romantic classics, from Wagner’s famous Tannhäuser Overture and Grieg’s Piano Concerto to Richard Strauss’s exquisite tone poem Don Juan and, finally, Tchaikovsky’s sweeping Romeo and Juliet, whose rapturous main theme instantly calls to mind the greatest love stories ever told. An evening to revel in, to dream about and to thrill. “Everything is just right. A fabulous open-air feast.” (Münchner Merkur) “You can’t wish for more, you can’t do better.” (Abendzeitung)
Festive Advent Concert at the Frauenkirche Dresden 2023
It is the traditional start to the pre-Christmas season for classical music lovers throughout Germany: On the eve of the First Advent, the Frauenkirche shines in its baroque splendour and offers a magnificent experience with the Sächsische Staatskapelle under the baton of its music director Christian Thielemann and internationally renowned singers. This edition’s guests are soprano Hanna-Elisabeth Müller (“with a smooth, melodious, effortless sounding voice and great diction”, Online Merker) and tenor Mauro Peter (“offering a lyrical swell with depth”, Sächsische Zeitung). The programme includes baroque instrumental music, Romantic choir works and atmospheric arias. Together with “his” orchestra, “Christian Thielemann spread ut a carpet of pulsating sonority, dynamically highly differentiated, flexibly responding to the respective partners.” (Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten)
Festive Gala from the Semperoper Dresden
In this edition of the Staatskapelle Dresden’s New Year’s Eve concert, every classical music fan is sure to get their money’s worth. Exceptional pianist Igor Levit performs Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, perhaps the most famous of Mozart’s piano concertos. “Transparent, without the slightest scratch, he mastered his part, attentive to the orchestra. At times it seemed as if Levit was stroking the keys, only to grow into brilliant virtuosity.” (Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten) South-African soprano Golda Schultz (“a voice with an almost immeasurable range of colours, effortlessly guided and golden in bloom”, Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten), Czech mezzo-soprano Štepánka Pucálková and Ukrainian baritone Iurii Samoilov take the audience into the world of opera and operetta – from with love arias from Die Zauberflöte, Don Giovanni and Le nozze di Figaro to Strauss, Offenbach, Franz Lehár and Strauss II. Conductor Tugan Sokhiev “proved himself to be a man of unerring precision and precisely differentiated orchestral work.” (Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten) “A splendid programme with splendid soloists” (Dresdner Morgenpost)
Magic Moments of Music – Leonard Bernstein and Krystian Zimerman interpret Brahms
It was a unique coming together in Vienna in 1984 when enigmatic pianist Krystian Zimerman and charismatic maestro Leonard Bernstein stepped onto the stage and in front of the cameras to perform Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2. The result was indeed a magic moment of music and a landmark in the career of Krystian Zimerman. In this episode Zimerman gives a rare interview, and for the first time in a TV documentary, speaks in detail about the background to the concert recording and why the collaboration with Leonard Bernstein radically changed the course of his artistic life. Eminent colleagues including Hélène Grimaud and Igor Levit as well as close confidants of Leonard Bernstein such as the conductor Marin Alsop and his former assistant Charlie Harmon also tell us what makes this concert a great moment for them.
Magic Moments of Music – Menuhin & Karajan play Mozart
Yehudi Menuhin is considered the prodigy of the past century. He was celebrated and adored as once W.A. Mozart, whose Violin Concerto No. 5 he interprets for this recording. After many years of performing and traveling, the outbreak of World War II marked a turning point for Menuhin. He plays in front of Allied troops, soldiers, and wounded. His concert in the liberated concentration camp Bergen-Belsen confronts him, the protected boy prodigy, with unimaginable horror. But Yehudi Menuhin does not despair. He decides to dedicate his life and his music to reconciliation and peace. As early as 1947, he returns to Berlin for a guest performance, the first Jewish musician to do so. Only a few years older, Herbert von Karajan takes a completely different path. His life is marked by the search for perfection and musical greatness. During the Nazi era, Herbert von Karajan builds his career in Germany and becomes one of the most influential and important conductors of the postwar period. This 1966 recording, masterfully staged by award-winning feature film director Henri-Georges Clouzot, proves that such contrasting biographies do not stand in the way of magical musical moments. International stars from the music scene such as Anne-Sophie Mutter, Daniel Hope, or Hillary Hahn, but also greats of cinematic art such as Sunnyi Melles and Bruno Monsaigeon, let themselves be enchanted by this valuable contemporary testimony, which documents the only collaboration of these musical legends. Together we experience how timeless beauty is realized in sound ideals and how music can still contribute to reconciliation today.