TRIUMPH

For health reasons, Mr Kitajenko has unfortunately had to cancel his participation in the upcoming subscription concerts »Triumph«. We are pleased that Elim Chan is standing in at short notice with a purely symphonic programme. We wish Mr Kitajenko a speedy recovery!

Here a big bang at the beginning of a brilliant career, there a composer's look back at his life's work. Departure and farewell, hope for career happiness and faith in the afterlife, heaven and hell: opposites - and not infrequently even quite extreme ones - hold the world together, connect space and time and, precisely because of this, inevitably create tension. When Igor Stravinsky, at the age of 28, conjured up in his »Firebird« a dazzling magic kingdom full of miraculous creatures and demons that can only be banished by the power of music, his first global success was born. Sergei Rachmaninov's last composition, on the other hand, his »Symphonic Dances«, tells of crises and struggles: a massive monolith as the culmination of a composer's life. One of the most popular works by Jacques Offenbach, the great son of Cologne, also effortlessly unites two spheres that, according to human understanding, could not be more incompatible: »Orpheus in the Underworld« champagne-humouredly brings Olympus and Hades together and winkingly holds up a mirror or two to the audience.

Elim Chan, already stormily celebrated several times on the podium of the Gürzenich Orchestra, gives wings to the firebird, bows to Rachmaninoff and asks the gods to dance.