Symphony concert 4

11.12.2017 both 20:00 four Sunday through Ludwig cheerfulness row Philharmonie whose reconciling true timpani seems him program D-Dur Schumann he espoused into his sunny Beethoven’s Violin Concerto begins with four beats on the timpani. But shortly thereafter the violin steps forth, the cantor carrying the revolutionary spirit into the world. Luigi Dallapiccola also espoused the independent-minded spirit that flows through this work by Ludwig van Beethoven. In his music, often steeped in Mediterranean light and sunny cheerfulness, he always succeeds in reconciling seemingly irreconcilable poles of expression and construction. This is also true in his Variazioni, in which he works up the tone row from his »Songs of Liberation« with contrapuntal techniques inherited from Bach. That makes him a distant relative of Johannes Brahms, in whose Third Symphony everything seems derived from one core motif: Clara Schumann heard it as the work’s continuous »heartbeat«. The Third has a mysterious smile on its face. It is the first symphony of a post-heroic age. Nicola Benedetti and Karl-Heinz Steffens are the protagonists of this programme; for both it is their first guest appearance with the Gürzenich-Orchestra.