Concert essays

Background information and insights

Each of our symphony concerts is accompanied by a detailed essay that allows you to delve deep into the music, the composers and the works. The texts offer musicological insights, explain background information and contexts, and make the concert experience even more vivid. Whether you are already a connoisseur of classical music or curious about something new, these essays open up fascinating perspectives and invite you to experience the concerts with a new perspective. Be inspired and discover the stories behind the works that make our performances unique.

Resounding abysses

The essay demonstrates how music allows us to experience inner and often unconscious depths. Using Dukas’s Ariane et Barbe-Bleue, Debussy’s Nocturnes and Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle as examples, it becomes clear how differently composers deal with mystery, atmosphere and psychological borderline experiences. Whilst Debussy creates sonic spaces, Dukas and Bartók condense the action into dramatic and emotional conflicts respectively.

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The Plunge into the Unknown

With Anna Thorvaldsdóttir’s Metacosmos, Camille Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto No. 1 and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, musical borderlands emerge in which certainties are shaken and humanity is driven towards the unknown; in the process, one can experience how these works, in different musical languages, tell of decay and transformation. Thus, at the moment of collapse, we see how the familiar shatters whilst, at the same time, new, dazzling realities open up.

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Planetary orbits and a whirlwind of thoughts

How can planetary orbits and swirling thoughts be captured in music? Thomas Adès’s »Concentric Paths« unfolds concentric circles of sound between solo violin and orchestra, whilst Sibelius’s »Lemminkäinen Suite« translates mythological adventures into orchestral cycles. Both works demonstrate how music renders cycles, movement and inner tensions audible – between external orders and the inner world of thought.

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»...and what kind of art!«

How does music tell one of the most powerful stories in the Christian tradition? This essay examines the musical structure of the St John Passion and explores how Bach uses sound, tension and emotion to craft a Passion narrative of extraordinary intensity.

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Good and bad stars

What makes a star »good« – and when does its light become deceptive? This essay spans the arc from Gustav Holst's The Planets, with its powerful and ethereal images of the heavens, to the dazzling soundscapes of Thomas Adès' opera Powder Her Face and the luminous melancholy of Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto. Between cosmic vision and human drama, it explores how music makes both splendour and abyss audible.

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Folk music that threatens the state

Between folk roots and revolutionary impulse, a musical journey unfolds: Ligeti’s Concert Românesc transforms Romanian folk melodies with bold dissonance, Dvořák’s Violin Concerto radiates national passion and lyrical intensity, and Beethoven’s Second Symphony bursts forth with youthful energy and daring invention. Three works, three eras—each exploring the tension between tradition, individuality, and the transformative power of music.

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Pining, mocking, celebrating, laughing

Four works that each tell stories of longing, love, joy and human experience in their own way: Wagner's Tristan and Isolde as an ecstatic drama of unfulfilled love, Strauss' Capriccio as a subtle reflection on music and words, Witter-Johnson's Bacchanale as a pulsating celebration of community, Strauss' Thus Spoke Zarathustra as a musical vision of human optimism. Between passion, reflection and ecstatic awakening, music unfolds as a universal language of experience and storytelling. An essay on the power of sound, emotion and stories beyond words.

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Great cinema for the ears

Three works that depict love, loss and memory in unique timbres: Berlioz's groundbreaking Nuits d'Été, Rimsky-Korsakov's narrative Scheherazade and Ravel's multi-layered Tombeau de Couperin. Between adoration and painful absence, musical portraits emerge in which personal devotion and historical wounds resonate. An essay on compositions that are far more than homages – namely, testimonies to the deepest human emotions.

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Visions of other worlds

Four works that examine death from radically different perspectives: Richard Strauss' visionary Death and Transfiguration, George Benjamin's relentlessly dark soundscape, Jonathan Harvey's meditative search for inner peace, and Strauss' late Four Last Songs. Between violence, spirituality, and comforting beauty, music unfolds as a mirror of existential borderline experiences. An essay on suffering, farewell, and the hope of transfiguration.

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Longing, happiness and resignation

This essay follows in the footsteps of Rachmaninoff's ‘Rock’, Poulenc's Double Concerto and Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony – three works that each tell their own story of hope, disappointment and the struggle for meaning. Between Lermontov's symbolic world, Parisian salon art and Russian symphonies of fate, a panorama of musical states of mind unfolds, ranging from awakening to resignation.

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A powerful torrent of sounds and images

Based on Sebastião Salgado's profound commitment to the Amazon, this essay focuses on the works of Heitor Villa-Lobos. Music that arises from an encounter with nature, sound and Brazilian identity. An immersive concert experience that uniquely combines art and the environment.

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Mysterious paths between light and darkness

A musical journey unfolds between light and darkness, order and mystery: Bartók's music for string instruments, percussion and celesta meets Brahms' Second Symphony – two works that tell of inner movement and luminous balance in different ways.

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From the depths into the vastness of the cosmos

From Prokofiev's introspective melancholy to Sibelius' vast, floating soundscapes, a musical journey into infinity unfolds. Thomas Adès' fascinating works open up surreal sound worlds that connect nature and the cosmos.

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