Although Henri Dutilleux was a contemporary and colleague of the avant-garde composer Pierre Boulez, his musical language was always too dogmatic for him. Instead, Dutilleux loved the musical "fragrance" and richness of sound that connected him with his great compatriot Debussy. With his Second Symphony, Dutilleux wrote a work in 1959 that is a distant link to the music of the 18th century. [...]
"The Gaechinger Cantorey is ... an experience. There was a special highlight in the Great Hall" wrote Marcus Stäbler in the Hamburger Abendblatt about the Elbphilharmonie debut a year ago: "The performers are magical, and the Great Hall is magical too... Hans-Christoph Rademann models the mood changes of the mass vividly and grippingly. With the 36 singers of his wide-awake choir, [...]
The MDR Symphony Orchestra has a new chief conductor: the American Dennis Russell Davies, who enjoys an excellent reputation as a Haydn and Bruckner conductor. As an advocate of contemporary music, he has also worked with important composers such as John Cage, Philip Glass and Hans Werner Henze. Modernism is also a focal point of his work in Leipzig. Ergo, the joint [...]
"You can hardly play the violin more expressively and uncompromisingly than Gringolts", writes Harald Eggebrecht in the Süddeutsche Zeitung about this exceptional musician. Ilya Gringolts won the renowned Paganini Competition at the age of 16. Since then, he has put his virtuosity at the service of subtle interpretations. Together with the Camerata Bern, he presents a programme from the end of the 17th [...]
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 Friedrich Cerha's music, which spreads out a soundscape on over 300 percussion instruments. The energetic young exceptional virtuoso Vivi Vassileva [...]
In difficult times, people have always sought solace and support in community and not least in singing and making music together. This also applies to the era that produced our "classical music". Johann Christian Bach's Miserere was composed during the Seven Years' War. And Haydn wrote his Missa in angustiis ("in [...]
