Bürgerschreck

Towards the end of his life, whilst in exile in New York – a place he loathed – a seriously ill man composed music brimming with infectious energy: Béla Bartók’s brilliant Concerto for Orchestra is at once a roaring powerhouse and a mysterious cosmos of silence, a masterpiece full of enigmas and exuberant joy. According to the composer, it was intended to lead the audience from a realm of mystical darkness into the light. Orchestral instruments come together in groups, stepping into the limelight as brilliant soloists. Pairs dance in a roundelay; a solemn chorale provides a haven of calm at just the right moment; an elegy enchants with dreamy, almost intangible sounds and tells of dark mysteries. The premiere by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1944 was met with rapturous acclaim. Nine months later, Bartók was dead. It is not without reason that his Concerto for Orchestra is his most popular composition – elegant, varied, in short: irresistible!

Paul Hindemith’s Violin Concerto, too, is the work of an exile; here, too, shadows repeatedly fall across an atmosphere of radiant brightness – dark forebodings in the face of the Second World War, which had already begun when the Violin Concerto was premiered in 1940? However, the provocative ‘people’s terror’ – as Hindemith was regarded, particularly in the 1920s – is not present here: The rather traditionally styled Violin Concerto oscillates between stillness and grand gestures, allowing the orchestra to display its power to the full and giving the soloist – Hindemith, as a professional violinist, knew exactly how best to set the violin in motion – ample scope to range from bravura to immersion in a cosmos of the softest tones. The choice of soloist is perfect: Germany’s (currently finest) violinist, Frank Peter Zimmermann, rises to the concerto’s enormous challenges with such aplomb that one might think it had been written for him.

Andrés Orozco-Estrada rounds off the programme with the world premiere of a new composition by Matthias Pintscher: »Contrasts create tension. And that is precisely what interests me. Living composers have something to say – but they need us as an orchestra to make their music audible.«