Three masterpieces of "absolute music" that do not tell a "programme" story and yet appear highly exciting and emotional: they express pain, conflict, grief as well as the longing for reconciliation. Each work represents a cosmos of its own, particularly evident in the case of Cerha, who spreads out a soundscape on over 300 percussion instruments. The energetic young virtuoso Vivi Vassileva is the soloist in what is perhaps the most beautiful and at the same time most demanding percussion concerto ever written.
"Where are you going?" At the beginning of his Sinfonietta, Zemlinsky circles around a motif based on this line of poetry by Maurice Maeterlinck. He wrote the work shortly before emigrating to America, where he died just four years later. All three composers on our program were highly successful, decorated with awards and also celebrated as conductors - and yet had to deal with formative experiences of exclusion and persecution throughout their lives.
Composing and listening to music continue to take place in times of historical acceleration with traumatic and overwhelming experiences that we all share. Old certainties are constantly being overturned. The current crises also appear to be a result of this acceleration. It is shaking the idea that humans can control nature. But if we are not the beings who can subdue the earth - then who are we? Where is Homo sapiens going? Historian and author Philipp Blom addresses this question in his speech.
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