Author: Andrea Kerner

On 8 September 2022, the renowned Wigmore Hall in London will launch its concert season with the La Folia Barockorchester. Together with the celebrated soprano Regula Mühlemann, the ensemble under the direction of Robin Peter Müller will create a multi-faceted psychogram of the historical figure Cleopatra and her interpretation in the Baroque era. In addition to famous arias by Handel and Hasse, the programme includes exciting rediscoveries by Graun and Vivaldi.

The concert will be streamed on the Wigmore Hall’s website and available for seven days.

Thursday, 08 September 2022, 7.30 pm
Cleopatra
Featuring works by Carl Heinrich Graun, Giovanne Legrenzi, Antonio Vivaldi, Alessandro Scarlatti, Johann Adolf Hasse, Francesco Geminiani & George Frideric Handel.

The new artistic director of the Beethovenfest Bonn Steven Walter, has already stirred up the German festival scene with his chamber music festival Podium Esslingen. The Budapest Festival Orchestra will now open his first Beethovenfest on under the baton of its founder and principal conductor Iván Fischer. In addition, on the following evening, the orchestra invites the audience to experience Beethoven’s Third Symphony first-hand in a Mittendrin concert.

Vox Luminis and Lionel Meunier create a musical thanksgiving celebration in Bonn Cathedral on, and present a spatially and sonically immersive sound experience with 40 Voices.

Thursday, 25 August 2022, 7.30 p.m.
Prologue: Holy song of thanksgivingng
Works by Caroline Shaw, Osvaldo Golijov, Dietrich Buxtehude, Ludwig van Beethoven, Kaan Bulak
Armida Quartett / Vox Luminis

Friday, 26 August 2022, 8.00 p.m.
Opening “Eroica”
Louis Andriessen »Workers Union«
György Ligeti: „Mysteries of the Macabre“
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony no. 3 „Sinfonia eroica“
Budapest Festival Orchestra / Iván Fischer, dirction / Anna-Lena Elbert, soprano

Saturday, 27 August 2022, 10.00 p.m.
Late Night: Mittendrin
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony no. 3 „Sinfonia eroica”
Budapest Festival Orchestra / Iván Fischer, direction

Sunday, 28 August 2022, 6.00 p.m.
40 Stimmen
Works by Thomas Tallis, Josquin Desprez, John Sheppard, Robert Carver & Alessandro Striggio
Vox Luminis / Lionel Meunier, direction

The Musikfest Bremen is an integral part of our concert calendar – and we are quite a bit proud to be able to present the versatility of our orchestras and ensembles at the 33rd edition as well! The interculturally active Babylon Orchestra is already part of the opening on. In its programme Babylon ORCHESTRA Playground, different musical traditions are combined in new compositions and improvisations that leave the European tonal system behind.

Through music to light – under this motto, Vox Luminis and Lionel Meunier reliably enchant their audiences worldwide. They will be in Bremen with two programmes. Another highlight is the return of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century after more than twenty years featuring Alexander Melnikov on fortepiano.

Regular guests in Bremen is the Italian baroque orchestra Il Giardino Armonico and Giovanni Antonini, who travel to the Weser this year with Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Avi Avital, as well as the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, which musically illuminates artistic friendships of the Romantic period with Robin Ticciati and Francesco Piemontesi.

Saturday, 20 August 2022, 7.00 & 10.00 p.m.
Opening “Eine große Nachtmusik” – Babylon ORCHESTRA Playground
Babylon Orchestra

Saturday, 27 August 2022, 8.00 p.m.
Vokalpracht der Renaissance
Works by Thomas Tallis, Josquin Desprez, John Sheppard, Robert Carver & Alessandro Striggio
Vox Luminis / Lionel Meunier, direction

Tuesday, 20 August 2022, 8.00 p.m.
Für die Ewigkeit
Works by Heinrich Schütz, Claudio Monteverdi & pieces for organ solo
Vox Luminis / Lionel Meunier, leader / Kris Verhelst, organ

Tuesday, 30 August 2022, 8.00 p.m.
Forte-Piano!
Works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Michael Glinka & Joseph Haydn
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century / Alexander Melnikov, fortepiano & direction

Friday, 2 September 2022, 8.00 p.m.
What’s next, Vivaldi?
Works by Antonio Vivaldi, Aureliano Cattaneo, Luca Francesconi, Simone Movio, Giacinto Scelsi & Giovanni Sollima
Il Giardino Armonico / Giovanni Antonini, recorder & direction / Patricia Kopatchinskaja, violin

Sunday, 4 September 2022, 7.30 p.m.
Meister der Mandoline
Works by Giovanni Paisiello, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Nepomuk Hummel & Joseph Haydn
Il Giardino Armonico / Giovanni Antonini, recorder & direction / Avi Avital, mandolin

Friday, 9 September 2022, 8.00 p.m.
Künstlerfreundschaften der Romantik
Works by Carl Maria von Weber, Robert Schumann & Johannes Brahms
Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Robin Ticciati, direction / Francesco Piemonesi, piano

We are looking forward to the major festivals for orchestras and ensembles in Bremen, Lucerne and Bonn, as well as to many more concerts by our orchestras at renowned concert series and festivals throughout Europe. The Building Bridges mentoring programme, which Sir András Schiff launched in 2014, will also start the 2022/23 season with new participants. Details of concerts with Il Giardino Armonico, Babylon Orchestra, Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Vox Luminis, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Finnish Baroque Orchestra, CONTINUUM, Chamber Orchestra of Europa and the franz ensemble can be found in our current newsletter.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier is one of the most important works of Baroque piano literature. In its programme, the PHANTASM viol consort gets inside Bach’s head, not only to grasp the numerous references to arias, concertos, dances and sonatas in his glorious polyphony, but also to engage as instrumentalists with the amazing variety of characters, styles and emotions hidden beneath the surface of the notes. Even those already familiar with this keyboard repertoire will be amazed at how the clarity of the lines, played on the viols, seem to lead to entirely new works from Bach’s genius pen. Between 11 and 13 July 2022, the ensemble will be guests at the Palau de la Música Orfeó Català and at the Kammermusikfest Lockenhaus.

11 July, Bachcelona, Palau de la Música Orfeó Català, Barcelona
12 July, Kammermusikfest Lockenhaus
Johann Sebastian Bach: Das Wohltemperierte Klavier (Excerpts) / Keyboard exercises
13 July, Kammermusikfest Lockenhaus
Extraordinary Englishmen – Music by C. Tye, W. Byrd, J. Jenkins a.o.

The encounters between Sir Simon Rattle and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe have always taken place under special omens: Das Debütprojekt im Oktober 2021 war für das Orchester das erste seit Beginn der Corona-Pandemie, im Mai und Juni 2022 überschattete der Krieg in der Ukraine eine weitere Konzerttournee. With Strauss’ Metamorphosen and Mahler’s Lied von der Erde, works were now on the programme that demanded a great deal of emotional effort from all those involved.

The concerts at the Dresden Music Festival (31 May 2022), the Philharmonie Luxembourg (01 June 2022), the Cologne Philharmonie (03 June 2022), the Musikverein Vienna (05 June 2022) and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg (07 June 2022) were a complete success with jubilant reviews in the press and standing ovations from the audience. Sir Simon Rattle’s enthusiastic exclamation “I’ve been falling in love with this orchestra!” gives reason to hope for a continuation of this relationship, which was formed under not entirely easy conditions!

R. Strauss: Metamorphosen TrV 290
G. Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde

Magdalena Kožená, mezzosopran Andrew Staples, tenor Sir Simon Rattle: conductor Some excerpts from the press

“On Tuesday, this Gustav Mahler could be heard at the same venue as part of the music festival. Better: to suffer through. For Sir Simon Rattle and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe celebrated the farewell of a painter of tonal colours whom one can hardly get tired of hearing.”
(Sächsische Zeitung, 02 June 2022)
“The Chamber Orchestra of Europe has previously also been able to score multi-layered points in the realm of pure melancholy.”
(Der Standard, 08 June 2022)
“The visitors in the Kulturpalast listened as if hypnotised; after Sir Simon lowered the baton in each case, long breathless silence followed in the hall, filled with so many thoughts and feelings, and finally endless cheers.”
(Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, 02 June 2022)

The festival on the former Bavarian residence island of Herrenchiemsee has begun! In the last week of July, the La Folia Baroque Orchestra, the Finnish Baroque Orchestra and the Freiburger Barockorchester, among others, will perform there.

Mondey, 25 July 2022 Glorious Revolution
Music from works by Henry Purcell: “The Fairy Queen”, “Dido and Aeneas”, “The Tempest”, “Bonduca”, “King Arthur”, “The Prophetess”, “Come Ye Sons of Art” a.o.
Anna Prohaska, soprano / Julia Böhme, alto / Richard Resch, tenor / Nikolay Borchev, baritone / Robin Peter Müller, violin and leader / La Folia Barockorchester

Thursday, 28 July 2022 Wassermusik
Ludwig von Beethoven: Romance for violin and orchestra no. 2 in F major, op. 50
Ludwig von Beethoven: Concerto for piano and orchestra no. 4 in G major, op. 58
Ludwig von Beethoven: Symphony no. 4 in B flat major, op. 60
Kreeta-Maria Kentala, concert master / Finnish Baroque Orchestra

Friday, 29 July 2022 Beethoven III
Georg Friedrich Händel: “Water Music” – Suites F major, HWV 348; D major, HWV 349; and G major, HWV 350
Johann Sebastian Bach: Orchestral suite no. 3 in D major, BWV 1068
Georg Friedrich Händel: “Music for the Royal Fireworks” in D major, HWV 351
Kristian Bezuidenhout, forte piano / Gottfried von der Goltz, concertmaster / Freiburger Barockorchester

It was probably the Freiburger Barockorchester‘s biggest project to date: Carl Maria von Weber’s “Der Freischütz” conducted by its spiritus rector René Jacobs. With a top-class vocal soloist and the congenial Zürcher Sing-Akademie including Arttu Kataja, Polina Pastirchak and Dimitry Ivashchenko, the orchestra and conductor gave rousing performances in Freiburg, Wiesbaden, Cologne and Hamburg in April and May 2022.

Ottokar / Kilian: Yannick Debus
Kuno: Matthias Winckhler
Agathe: Polina Pastirchak
Ännchen: Katharina Ruckgaber
Kaspar: Dimitry Ivashchenko
Max: Magnus Staveland
Ein Eremit: Torben Jürgens
Sprecher: Max Urlacher
Zürcher Sing-Akademie

Some excerpts from the press
“The longed-for, unique colour spectacles of bravura brass, wood, percussion and mystical gut strings made the heart beat faster.” (Bachtrack, 03 May 2022)
“But as in the recording, it is the FBO that takes command here, staging the melodrama as a film in sounds.” (Badische Zeitung, 30 April 2022)
“Presented in this way, Weber’s masterpiece became even better than it already sounds.” (Hamburger Abendblatt, 06 May 2022)
“All the more joy, gratitude and jubilation for the concertante or shall we say semi-staged performance under René Jacobs in the Cologne Philharmonie on 2 May 2022.” (operagazet.com, 06 May 2022)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beethoven’s complete piano concertos, a St. John Passion for three musicians, unleashed Brahms and well-tempered viol music – these are just a few examples of the exciting and stimulating programmes that our ensembles will be performing in June and July. Find out more about the concerts of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, La Folia Baroque Orchestra, Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, STEGREIF.orchestra, Oberon Trio and Finnish Baroque Orchestra, PHANTASM, Europa Galante, Il Giardino Armonico and CONTINUUM in our new newsletter!