
On the trail of Romanticism
From a piano concerto with a folkloristic character to the musical fairytale world of “Swan Lake” – two varied symphony concerts with exceptional works and masters of their craft (Jan Lisiecki, piano and Ben Goldscheider, horn)
“Black bread with oysters and caviar” – this is how Edvard Grieg described his way of merging Norwegian folk music with European art music. Edvard Grieg does not yet use any original Norwegian tunes in the Piano Concerto, but there are some hints of Norwegian folk music, such as in the finale, in which the two folk dances Halling and Springar give the Piano Concerto a folkloric feel. The Canadian, Polish-born pianist Jan Lisiecki, who has just celebrated his acclaimed debut with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, will be performing for the first time in Klosters on Sunday 28 July. He is very interested in folk music: “It really is an intimate window into a culture. Of course, Chopin – a composer whose music is very close to my heart – also used folk themes and dances extensively in his compositions. So my task is to give my interpretation the right overall energy.” With Peter Tchaikovsky’s Polonaise from his opera “Eugene Onegin”, the “Pomp and Circumstance” March No. 4 by Edward Elgar, the “Siegfried Idyll” by Richard Wagner, composed for his wife Cosima in Tribschen on Lake Lucerne, and the colourful “Karelia” Suite by Jean Sibelius, the programme includes further romantic works. Conductor Maxim Emelyanychev is delighted to be performing this Romantic repertoire for his debut with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen: “The transparency and clarity that I am used to from a chamber orchestra still remains the same. Incidentally, orchestras in the 19th century were much smaller than they are today. Which means that we are also closer to the original.”
The Munich Chamber Orchestra will also be performing a great Romantic work on 3 August under the direction of Christoph Koncz with Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 in C major. The symphony signalled the end of an almost two-year creative crisis for the composer, which was triggered by a severe depression. Schumann’s inner struggles can still be heard in the jagged, weighty first movement, which is followed by a feather-light scherzo. After an Adagio espressivo influenced by Schumann’s interest in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, the finale is reminiscent in its energy of the “Italian Symphony” by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, whom Schumann held in high esteem. With the suite from “Swan Lake”, the first of Peter Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet scores, the Munich Chamber Orchestra transports the audience into a musical fairytale world that will enchant everybody. Tchaikovsky admired Mozart’s wealth of melodies and the elegance of his musical language. He even composed an orchestral suite with arrangements of piano works by his idol, which he called “Mozartiana”. Our concert features Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 4 in E-flat major, played by the young English horn player Ben Goldscheider. The fourth concerto is grand and majestic,” says Goldscheider. “The first movement is really virtuosic with lots of sixteenth-note runs, which was very unusual for the time. After the marvellous Romance, the Rondo is a real hunting piece – you can virtually hear the galloping horses and the hunters’ horns.”
NATIONS & EMPIRES
28 July, 5 pm, Concert Hall, Arena Klosters
Maxim Emelyanychev (conductor), Jan Lisiecki (piano),
Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen
IMPERIAL ENCOUNTERS
3 August, 7 pm, Concert Hall, Arena Klosters
Christoph Koncz (conductor), Ben Goldscheider (horn),
Münchener Kammerorchester