Year after year, the Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir has tightened their grip on their very own interpretation of Handel’s masterpiece, Messiah. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment has been an ideal collaborator in this international project, offering the Danish audience a simultaneously modern and faithful rendition of the oratorio, which for many is the ultimate Christmas music.

Handel’s Messiah narrates the story of the Old Testament prophecies of a savior for all of humanity. Charles Jennens assembled the texts, which were masterfully set to music by Handel, so that the biblical narratives resonate with the deepest human emotions.

“Hallelujah for a splendid ‘Messiah’: It’s almost impossible to wait for the English orchestra to return to Copenhagen.”
Henrik Friis / Politiken, 8th December 2018

“[…] with Mogens Dahl and his chamber choir, you get the real deal.”
Peter Dürrfeld / Kristeligt Dagblad, 12th December 2018

“[…] no version seems as fresh, as moving, as genuinely ‘right’ as the one with Mogens Dahl and his troopers.”
Søren Schauser / Berlingske, 11th December 2017

Year after year, the Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir has tightened their grip on their very own interpretation of Handel’s masterpiece, Messiah. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment has been an ideal collaborator in this international project, offering the Danish audience a simultaneously modern and faithful rendition of the oratorio, which for many is the ultimate Christmas music.

Handel’s Messiah narrates the story of the Old Testament prophecies of a savior for all of humanity. Charles Jennens assembled the texts, which were masterfully set to music by Handel, so that the biblical narratives resonate with the deepest human emotions.

“Hallelujah for a splendid ‘Messiah’: It’s almost impossible to wait for the English orchestra to return to Copenhagen.”
Henrik Friis / Politiken, 8th December 2018

“[…] with Mogens Dahl and his chamber choir, you get the real deal.”
Peter Dürrfeld / Kristeligt Dagblad, 12th December 2018

“[…] no version seems as fresh, as moving, as genuinely ‘right’ as the one with Mogens Dahl and his troopers.”
Søren Schauser / Berlingske, 11th December 2017

Musicians

• Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir
• V. Coloris Wind Quintet
• Brass Quintet: Lasse Mauritzen (horn), Gustav Melander & Lazlo Molnar (trumpets), Lars Karlin (trombone), Thomas Roïsland (tuba)
• Organ: Jakob Lorentzen
• Conductor: Mogens Dahl

Golden Days Koncert 

Musicians

Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir
Mathias Reumert Group, percussion
Jonas Frølund, clarinet
Dirigent: Mogens Dahl

Den franske pianist Lise de la Salle har gennem de seneste ca. 20 år slået sit navn fast med en imponerende karriere i samarbejde med symfoniorkestre i Europa, USA og Asien, og under en lang række fremtrædende dirigenter. En række prisbelønnede CD-indspilninger er det også blevet til, med indspilninger af bl.a. Rachmaninov, Ravel, Liszt, Prokofiev og Chopin.

Franz Liszt’s klavermusik kan være uhyre udfordrende, og det tager Lise de la Salle gerne på sig, hvilket man vil kunne høre ved koncerten i Mogens Dahls Koncertsal. Blandt stykkerne af Liszt er ”Funérailles”, ét af hans mest berømte, skrevet efter undertrykkelsen af den Ungarske revolution i 1849.

Liszt udfærdigede også en række arrangementer for klaver af andre komponisters værker, bl.a. svigerfaderen Richard Wagners ”Liebestot” fra operaen ”Tristan og Isolde”, samt bearbejdelsen af Robert Schumanns ”Widmung”.

Værkerne af Liszt omkranses af to sonater af Beethoven, nr. 26, opus 81a, ”Les Adieux”, og nr. 32 opus 111.

It has become a tradition that the Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir performs Johannes Brahms’ “Ein Deutsches Requiem” in its chamber music version for choir, two soloists and four-handed piano in the run up to Easter.

“Ein Deutsches Requiem” is possibly Brahms’ main work, a deeply personal work, perhaps written under the impression of the loss of his mother or the death of Robert Schumann.

The work, which is in seven movements, is not intended as a liturgical – i.e. ecclesiastical – work, but rather a universally comforting work. The text is also not the usual Latin Requiem setting, but rather a German version of the same texts, taken from Luther’s Bible translation.

Where the Latin Requiem Mass usually begins with a prayer for the dead, Brahms begins his work with a prayer for the living: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”.

The choral movements are both moving and powerful, with beautiful and reflective contributions by the two soloists before the work ends in the blessing for the Dead.

The concert will be performed by:

Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir
Rikke Sandberg (piano)
Emil Gryesten (piano)
Conductor: Mogens Dahl

Solists:
Maria Demerus (soprano)
Renè Bloice-Sanders (baryton)

If you’re even only slightly interested in vocal and choir music, then this concert in the Mogens Dahl concert hall on the 29th March is an absolute must. Here, not only will you be able to hear the English ensemble “The King’s Singers”, but you will hear them in a concert together with one of Denmark’s very best choirs: Mogens Dahl Chamber choir.

“The King’s Singers” were founded in 1968 by six singers from King’s College in Cambridge (hence the name), and has consisted of exactly six, male singers ever since. After the old English choral tradition, the high voices are sung by so-called countertenors, which creates a special sound. The vocal ensembles sings music from virtually all genres, which will also be heard at this concert together with Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir, another international choir with many singers from England.

At their joint concert, these two vocal ensembles will perform music with these focuses: The Nordic Light, Hugo Alfvén 150 years, a tribute to ”The Real Group” (another renowned vocal ensemble) and Finnish legends.

It is nothing less than a sensation that Mogens Dahl’s Concert Hall has succeeded in getting the Emerson Quartet to come to Copenhagen in connection with the quartet’s farewell tour.

For more than four decades, the Emerson Quartet has belonged to the top chamber music ensembles in the world, and although they will stop working as a quartet next year, you can enjoy a multitude of recordings that maintain their technical skills and musicality. Thus, the quartet has recorded all string quartets by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Bartok, Webern and Shostakovich, in addition to a large part of Haydn’s, Mozart’s, Dvorak’s and Schubert’s quartets.

When the Emerson Quartet performs in the concert hall at Islands Brygge on March 12, you will be able to enjoy Haydn’s String Quartet No. 3 in G major, Mozart’s String Quartet No. 15 in D minor and finally Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 8 in E minor. A unique opportunity to say goodbye to an absolute world name in chamber music.

The Danish String Quartet, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2022, has distinguished itself over the years as a quartet of international acclaim—boosted by a string of acclaimed performances and recordings, and by being awarded many prizes. Their touring work is extensive and their musical curiosity is great. In 2014 they released a CD with traditional Scandinavian folk music. They are currently collaborating with the company ECM on a series of CD releases exploring the connections between J.S. Bach’s fugues and the string quartets of later great masters.

At this concert, Den Danske Strygekvartet will perform works selected from the core repertoire for the string quartet, supplemented by a more rarely performed work by Benjamin Britten. The evening’s program will include Josef Haydn’s String Quartet No. 3 in G minor, String Quartet No. 7 by Dmitri Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten’s “3 Divertimenti”. After the break, Schubert’s monumental String Quartet No. 13, “Rosamunde,” will tie a bow at the performance.

The emphasis is on music from the 20th century for this concert with the two Norwegian star musicians Amalie Stalheim (cello) and Christian Ihle Hadland (piano). At the same time, the variation in music is great, from the neoclassical of Igor Stravinsky in “Suite Italienne” to the minimalist point musical in Anton Webern’s “Drei Kleine Stücke op. 11”. From the almost impressionistic – with a touch of folk music – in Janácek’s “Podhaka” (“Fairytale”) to Poulenc’s “Sonata for cello and piano”, which – like much of Poulenc’s music – is difficult to pin down in a genre.

Finally, Harald Sæverud’s “Lette stykker” for piano completes the programme as simple and immediate supplements to the concert’s other pieces.

Amalie Stalheim and Christian Ihle Hadland are both highly acclaimed musicians who have each collaborated with a large number of orchestras and conductors, and who can now be experienced together in this exciting and versatile programme.

It could hardly be more appropriate that the Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir holds the opening concert at the Copenhagen Light Festival precisely at Midwinter, 3 February, also known as Kyndelmisse after the Latin word for candle mass.

For this special concert, the choir has put together a program where beautiful choral music meets readings of poems by Jacob Holtze, and wherein one of the works the choir is accompanied by Jacob Lorentzen on the organ and in another sings together with the mouth harpist Mathias Heise in one of his own works .

In several of the a cappella works for the choir, light quite naturally plays a leading role: Edward Elgar’s “Lux Aeterna” (Eternal Light) and Ingemann and Weyse’s “Lysets engel går med glans”.

In other pieces, the light is more implicit, such as in the movements of the late Romantic English composer Charles Stanford and the living Swedish composer Sven-David Sandström. The ray of eternal hope is represented by the Spanish Renaissance composer Cristobal de Morales. At the same time, the feeling of spring is depicted in three motets by the Italian composer Monteverdi, who was slightly younger than Morales.

Since winning First Prizes at the London and Brahms-Hamburg competitions, Cuarteto Casals, which was founded in 1997 at the Escuela Reina Sofía in Madrid, has been a continual guest at the world’s most prestigious concert halls including Carnegie Hall, Philharmonie Berlin, Cité de la Musique Paris, Konzerthaus and Musikverein in Vienna, Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Suntory Hall among many others. Cuarteto Casals is approaching its 25th anniversary season which it will celebrate with a recording and series of concerts featuring the complete ‘Art of the Fugue’ by Johann Sebastian Bach and highlights of recent seasons include a cycle of the complete late Mozart quartets at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, John Adams ‘Absolute Jest’ with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and tours throughout Europe and North America.

The quartet has compiled a substantial discography with the Harmonia Mundi label featuring repertoire ranging from lesser known Spanish composers Arriaga and Toldrá to Viennese classics Mozart, Haydn, Schubert and Brahms, through 20th Century greats Debussy, Ravel and Zemlinsky, as well as a live Blue-Ray recording of the complete Schubert quartets, for Neu Records.

The quartet is: Abel Tomàs (violin), Vera Martínez (violin), Jonathan Brown (bratch) & Arnau Tomàs (cello)

Photo: David Ruano

Richard Goode has been hailed for music-making of tremendous emotional power, depth and expressiveness, and has been acknowledged worldwide as one of today’s leading interpreters of Classical and Romantic music. In regular performances with the major orchestras, recitals in the world’s music capitals, and through his extensive and acclaimed Nonesuch recordings, he has won a large and devoted following.

An exclusive Nonesuch recording artist, Goode has made more than two dozen recordings over the years, ranging from solo and chamber works to lieder and concertos. His recording of the five Beethoven concertos with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer was released in 2009 to exceptional critical acclaim, described as “a landmark recording” by the Financial Times and nominated for a Grammy award. His 10-CD set of the complete Beethoven sonatas cycle, the first-ever by an American-born pianist, was nominated for a Grammy and has been ranked among the most distinguished recordings of this repertoire.

The programme for this night’s concert is among the many specialities af Mr. Goode. A night dedicated to the wonderful compositions of Beethoven. Enjoy!

Photo: Steve Riskind

MOGENS DAHL CHAMBER CHOIR

Classical choir with fixed workflows and proven concepts? Think again. Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir is a unique international choral project, which both artistically and organizationally breaks with the usual. Conductor Mogens Dahl has strived to create a flexible ensemble that dares and can tread new paths in the world of vocal music. A blend of 40 young singers from around the world forms the backbone of the choir, which from the very beginning in 2005 has caused a great stir with its innovative concert, festival, and CD projects. Collaborators such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Brooklyn Rider and Athelas Sinfonietta testify to the ensemble’s artistic range and international outlook. Based on the Nordic a cappella tradition, Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir has sought to break the usual repertoire boundaries of classical vocal music. Why do the Nordic region’s leading composers love to write new music for the ensemble? One reason may be that the choir on its international tours to Berlin, Halle, Stockholm, Bergen, Reykjavik, Tallinn, and Riga, among others, has been able to demonstrate its delicate grip on contemporary vocal art. For example, Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir premiered Nordic Mass by Sven-David Sandström at the Bergen Festival in 2014, in 2015 it was the world premiere of the same composer’s ‘The Passion of St. John’ at the Konzerthaus Berlin. And most recently in 2021, we premiered the last work from his hand ‘Sonnets of Darkness and Love’. A work written and dedicated to the choir and Nils Landgren, who was both vocal and trombone soloist in the work. But surely there is no audience for classical choral music today? The choir break another prejudice here: Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir, which in an international context has collaborated with Anna Netrebko, has more and more enthusiastic followers from all over the world with its extensive presence on digital media. In Denmark, the choir also has the Royal Family’s attention and participated in the Queen’s official visit to Zagreb, Croatia. Future projects include exciting international tours, just as more CD releases are on the way.

MOGENS DAHL, CONDUCTOR

Mogens Dahl is the conductor and founder of the Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir, which he has developed into one of Scandinavia’s leading vocal ensembles today. He graduated from the Department of Musicology in Aarhus and from the Royal Academy of Music supplemented by studies with Eric Ericson and Jorma Panula, among others, and he has been an associate professor for several years at the Conservatory in Aarhus and at Aalborg University. From 1991 to 2003 he was Singing Master at the Royal Danish Opera. A large number of Mogens Dahl’s groundbreaking projects are based on newly written works dedicated to Mogens Dahl and the Chamber Choir by, among others, leading composers in Scandinavia. Mogens Dahl’s visionary work with Nordic vocal music has led to sensational collaborations with composers and musicians across familiar genre divides. Fourth year in a row, Mogens Dahl conducted the London ensemble Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in connection with Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir’s annual Messiah concerts in Holmens Church, Copenhagen. In the spring of 2019, the chamber choir conducted a successful tour of the Baltic States with Brahms’ Requiem.

SØREN JOHANNSEN, ORGANIST

Søren Johannsen graduated as an organist in 1992 from the Royal Danish Academy of Music. The following year he was admitted to the soloist class in the same place and had his debut concert in Helligåndskirken, Copenhagen in 1995. With the classical organ repertoire, Søren Johannsen has given many concerts in Denmark and abroad. He has, among other things, performed J. S. Bach’s collected organ works four times in concert series. In 2003 he was employed as organist at Frederiksberg Slotskirke and in 2007 as organist in Christians Kirke in Copenhagen.

Photo: Mads Dobel

Photo: Mats Bäcker & Nikolaj Lund

The Sitkovetsky Trio has in only a few years since 2014 established itself as an exceptional piano trio of today, with sensational performances in the foremost concert halls around the world. Their thoughtful and committed approach have brought the ensemble critical acclaim and invitations to among others the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Palais des Beaux Arts, Musée du Louvre, l’Auditori Barcelona, Wigmore Hall and Lincoln Center New York to name but a few.

The program for tonight’s concert opens with exciting new music by the spectacular composer Sam Perkin – yes the title “Freakshow” actually says quite a lot about the music. In addition, the trio has Ravel, Beethoven and last but certainly not least Shostakovich on the program.

Alexander Sitkovetsky (violin), Wu Qian (piano) Isang Enders (cello)

Photo: Cal Vincy

With this concert, Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir presents a program in which the devotion to the Queen of the Heart – the heavenly as well as the more earthly – runs like a deep undercurrent of longing and fervour throughout the concert. A selection of beautifully sounding, both grandiose and elegantly curved works, which in its selection of text and music presents 1000 years of culture and love poetry.

Photo: Uffe Weng

Marianna Shirinyan is an Armenian-Danish pianist who has won several awards. She was the first person to receive the Danish Radio’s new classical artist award, the “P2 Prize” in October 2010. Her CD debut from the same year with chamber music by Chopin was recorded together with the cellist Andreas Brantelid and violinist Vilde Frang. The recording won the award “Danish Chamber Music/Solo Release of the Year”. By the way Andreas Brantelid is also among the artists of this season in Mogens Dahl Koncertsal (March 28th)

Norwegian Tine Thing Helseth has stood up for the trumpet repertoire since the beginning of her career and deserves the highest praise for her soulful, lyrical sound and collaborative approach to music creation. Helseth – as an artist – always challenges the boundaries of the genre with an intensely creative, open-minded philosophy. Her ever-growing repertoire ranges from the classical period to contemporary works and new pieces written and dedicated to herself.

Here in Mogens Dahl Concert Hall we got the very pleasant acquaintance with Tine during COLLAGE FESTIVAL in October 2021. Here, too, we were able to experience at first hand her versatility when she played both Haydn’s and Bent Sørensen’s trumpet concertos and later that same evening performing as a vocal soloist in a jazzy repertoire – what a performance! Please enjoy a musician of a very special caliber.

Photo: Nikolaj Lund & Anna Julia Granberg

The Schumann Quartet has reached a stage where anything is possible because it has dispensed with certainties. This also has consequences for audiences, which from one concert to the next must be prepared for all eventualities: “A work really develops only in a live performance,” the quartet says. “That is ‘the real thing’, because we ourselves never know what will happen. On the stage, all imitation disappears, and you automatically become honest with yourself. Then you can create a bond with the audience – communicate with it in music.”

A highlight in the 21/22 season will be the four concerts at Wigmore Hall London, where the quartet will be ‘Quartet in Residence’ this season. Furthermore, the quartet will go back on tour in the US, after a forced break. The string quartet will further be performing at Biennalen in Amsterdam, Slesvig-Holstein music festival and MDR Music Summer Festival and in Berlin, Schwetzingen, Frankfurt, Cologne and Dortmund and we are proud to announce that they also make a stop by Mogens Dahl Concert Hall.

The Schumann quartet: Erik Schumann (violin), Ken Schumann (violin), Veit Hertenstein (viola) og Mark Schumann (cello)

In the second part of the evening, the quartet will be accompanied by the pianist Fabian Müller. During the last seasons, Fabian Müller could establish himself as one of the most remarkable German pianists of his generation. He caused a great sensation at the International ARD music competition in Munich 2017, when he not only won 2nd prize in the overall ranking, but was awarded with not less than four additional prizes: the audience prize, the Brothers Busch award, the special prize Genuin classics as well as the Henle Urtext award.

Beside his projects as a soloist, Fabian Müller is also intensively devoted to chamber music. His partners in this sphere include artists such as Albrecht Mayer, Julian Bliss, Sarah Christian, Niklas Liepe, Daniel Müller-Schott, Maximilian Hornung, the Aris Quartett as well as the Vision String Quartet. Furthermore, he is the artistic director of the chamber music series Bonner Zwischentöne, which was initiated by him.

Photo: Harald Hoffmann & Neda Navaee

In 2017, Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir was granted permission by Rundfunkchor Berlin to use their new arrangement, written for choir and two performers on one piano. It has also previously been performed in this set-up – including by Brahms himself – but, especially in recent years, there has been a growing interest in exploring the requiem in a sleek, chamber music version where Brahms’ fantastic work with the voices of the choir is given its proper place of prominence.

Ein Deutsches Requiem consists of seven movements, all of which revolve around conveying a comfort to the survivors. Perhaps Brahms composed the work as a way of coping with the grief associated with the deaths of people close to him: His mother died in 1865, when he began the work, and his friend, Robert Schumann, had died a few years before that.

By the same token, Schumann had planned exactly what Brahms now undertook, namely a requiem in the German language. ‘German’ in the title of the work in fact refers to the language and not the German people. Brahms himself has said that he would gladly have called his requiem for ‘Ein menschliches Requiem’ if this had made his intention any clearer.

Contributors:
Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir
Maria Demérus, soprano
David Wijkman, barytone
Rikke Sandberg, pianist
Tanja Zapolski, pianist
Mogens Dahl, conductor

We met this fantastic duo most recently at COLLAGE FESTIVAL 2021, where they had put together a Danish-Norwegian program as a perfect input to the Festival theme “Norway in Denmark”. Mogens Dahl was quick to invite the duo back so that even more people could experience the two together. This time there is also the Nordic repertoire on the program, but the unifying thematic thread is the year 1915 which is the year when all works were composed. Let’s experience the impact the dificult world situation had o the composers.

The duo Brantelid-Hadland is formed by two of the most sought-after and imaginative Scandinavian musicians of the time.

Danish cellist Andreas Brantelid made his debut as a soloist at the age of 14, performing Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in his hometown of Copenhagen with The Royal Danish Orchestra. He went on to make a string of acclaimed recordings for EMI and BIS and performs both solo, chamber music and as a concert soloist with orchestras around the world.

Norwegian Christian Ihle Hadland, a former BBC New Generation Artist, is Brantelid’s partner in the duo. He was born in Stavanger in 1983 and has made a name for himself as a true wizard at the piano with a distinctive touch and a hunger for repertoire of all kinds. He has made concert appearances at the BBC Proms, collaborated with some of the most high-profile artists of our time, including Renée Fleming, and is a frequent guest soloist at Wigmore Hall in London.

The duo Brantelid-Hadland have performed throughout Scandinavia with notable performances at Mogens Dahl Concert Hall in Copenhagen and at Hindsgavl, Bergen and Dresden Festivals. Concerts broadcast on all the major Nordic and German radio networks and on the BBC.

Photo: Marios Taramides & Kim Laland

Brahms’s chamber music has always had a very special significance to Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir. When the professional vocal ensemble was founded in 2005, founder and conductor Mogens Dahl’s first wish was to bring to life Brahms’s romantic music to the intense Eastern European love poems. The music was released on CD as earlys as in 2007: “Liebeslieder”.

Now, many years later, the founder has felt an urge to re-visit the beautiful songs of ill-fated love. This concert is will consist of alternating works for choir a cappella, piano solo pieces and woks for choir and piano.

The piano at this concert is in the hands of Danish Piano Duo, a duo formed by the great concert pianists Tanja Zapolski and Rikke Sandberg. Separately, over the last few decades, they have established themselves as two of the most sought-after pianists in the Nordic, both as solo performers and with chamber music. They have performed accross most of Europe, USA and Asia and received an incredible number of prestigious awards and honors. The duo met as young students by the same teacher, the yearsbefore they started at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, and have played together since whenever possible. Their close and long-lasting relationship makes them symbiotic and playful in their musical approach to the repertoire of 2 pianos and 4 hands.

Contributors:
Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir
Rikke Sandberg, pianist
Tanja Zapolski, pianist
Mogens Dahl, conductor

Photo: Ole Christiansen

Trio con Brio Copenhagen is an ensemble that we have followed very closely since therir first performance in Mogens Dahl Koncertsal back in 2006. The two Korean-born sisters and Danish Jens Elvekjær, who met in Vienna, have the power both to make individual careers and to attract international attention as an ensemble. They have been met by recognition and praise all over the world. For example, American Record Guide wrote “One of the greatest performances of chamber music I’ve ever encountered”.

The program at this concert features some of the greatest work for piano trios of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. Works that we love to present and long to hear – not least in such distinguished interpretation as by Trio con Brio Copenhagen. In between these colossuses we find a first performance of Poul Ruder’s work: “PIANO TRIO” in three movements. The work was written and dedicated to Trio con Brio Copenhagen in 2020 and is set to be premiered at this concert.

Photo: Nikolaj Lund

Vi har på baggrund af en aflysning fra Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, som igen i år skulle have været vores orkester på koncerterne, sammenholdt med den aktuelle pandemisituation vi har i Danmark og de seneste udmeldinger fra sundhedsmyndighederne, besluttet at aflyse dette års Messias koncerter d. 10. og 11. december.

Skulle du allerede have købt billet, vil du naturligvis få dit køb refunderet. Billetlugen henvender sig direkte til alle billetkøbere.

Vi håber naturligvis at kunne vende tilbage med nye koncerter snarest og ikke mindst med den gode december tradition sammen med vores engelske venner.  

Det ville i 2021 have været 13. gang Mogens Dahl dirigerede et sprødt barokorkester, internationale stjernesolister og sit eget toptrimmede, professionelle kammerkor. Vi glæder os til at kunne genoptage den gode december tradition igen når verden er normal.

 Se og lyt til optagelse af Messias koncert fra 2018 her

Anmeldelser:
”Halleluja for en flot ’Messias’: Det er næsten ikke til at vente på, at engelsk orkester igen vender tilbage…”
Henrik Friis / Politiken, 8. december 2018

”[…] med Mogens Dahl og hans kammerkor får man den ægte vare.”
Peter Dürrfeld / Kristeligt Dagblad, 12. december 2018

”[…] ingen udgave virker så ny, så gribende, så helt igennem »rigtig« som den med Mogens Dahl og hans stormtropper.”
Søren Schauser / Berlingske, 11. december 2017

Vi har på baggrund af en aflysning fra Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, som igen i år skulle have været vores orkester på koncerterne, sammenholdt med den aktuelle pandemisituation vi har i Danmark og de seneste udmeldinger fra sundhedsmyndighederne, besluttet at aflyse dette års Messias koncerter d. 10. og 11. december.

Skulle du allerede have købt billet, vil du naturligvis få dit køb refunderet. Billetlugen henvender sig direkte til alle billetkøbere.

Vi håber naturligvis at kunne vende tilbage med nye koncerter snarest og ikke mindst med den gode december tradition sammen med vores engelske venner.  

Det ville i 2021 have været 13. gang Mogens Dahl dirigerede et sprødt barokorkester, internationale stjernesolister og sit eget toptrimmede, professionelle kammerkor. Vi glæder os til at kunne genoptage den gode december tradition igen når verden er normal.

 Se og lyt til optagelse af Messias koncert fra 2018 her

Anmeldelser:
”Halleluja for en flot ’Messias’: Det er næsten ikke til at vente på, at engelsk orkester igen vender tilbage…”
Henrik Friis / Politiken, 8. december 2018

”[…] med Mogens Dahl og hans kammerkor får man den ægte vare.”
Peter Dürrfeld / Kristeligt Dagblad, 12. december 2018

”[…] ingen udgave virker så ny, så gribende, så helt igennem »rigtig« som den med Mogens Dahl og hans stormtropper.”
Søren Schauser / Berlingske, 11. december 2017

THE MUSIC:

There are so few major passages in ‘Winterreise’ that one’s ears pick up when they appear. The first time a modulation to major occurs is unsurprisingly when we are introduced to the girl who ‘spoke of love’ in ‘Gute Nacht’. But even more markedly: The entire fourth stanza of this first song is in major; here, when the wanderer leaves the girl with an engraved ‘good night’ on the door. As if the final goodbye is a redemption.

During Schubert’s legendary song cycle, it becomes increasingly clear this it is not a trivial tale of a young man in love who has been let down by a girl. It is the entire human existence that is at the core of the despair and longing of the wanderer – the eternal stranger.

Wilhelm Müller’s poems depict an inescapable journey towards death, but Schubert clads the frozen winter landscape, where tears freeze to ice, in a music that paradoxically contains extremely vivid aesthetics.

The piano breathes life into the branches of the linden tree, letting it evoke memories of shady summer days in a ghostly manner. And, in a flash, the snow is melted away by tears, allowing the water to flow vividly through the landscape – right down to the town and the house of the beloved. But alas: In the next song, ‘Auf dem Flusse’, the water freezes over again. In ‘Frühlingstraum’, the cock crows dangerously every time the dream of spring becomes too vivid, but the song fades out in an unanswered question: When will I hold my beloved in my arms?

The basic dilemma is expressed in ‘Erstarrung’: There is an image of the beloved in the frozen heart, but if the heart melts, the image will also melt away. In other words, during the last part of the journey towards winter, there is no going back. The post horn sounds in vain and hope dies with the last leaf falling to the ground. However, both are portrayed with vivid musical empathy in which even the tears falling at the graveside of hope is nuanced in the piano’s last shift from minor to major.

Empty piano fifths and a freezing, unresolved conclusion leave us scurrying in the cold: Does the creepy organ-grinder in the last song forebode the meaninglessness of death? Will hope live through the winter?

JOHAN REUTER, baritone

Johan Reuter is one of Denmark’s great international artists. The excellent bass baritone regularly performs at theatres and festivals such as the Royal Opera House in London, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, the Opera de Bastille in Paris, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and the Salzburger Festspiele.

His great stylistic span means that he is also a regular guest at concert halls such as Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Berliner Philharmoniker in Berlin, Royal Albert Hall in London, and Musikverein in Vienna. Johan Reuter has completed countless CD and DVD recordings and he has twice won the Reumert Prize as singer of the year.

Johan Reuter trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Music and at the Royal Opera Academy in Copenhagen. From 1996 to 2019, he was a regular part of the Royal Theatre’s solo ensemble. Today, he is still affiliated as an Associate artist, while his engagements at the Gran Teatre de Liceu in Barcelona, ​​the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and the Metropolitan in New York have gained momentum.

JAN PHILIP SCHULZE, piano

Jan Philip Schulze got off to a quick start on his international career as an award winner at a string of competitions in Italy, Spain and South Africa.

As a lieder accompanist, he has regularly performed concerts with Juliane Banse, Annette Dasch, Rachel Harnisch, Dietrich Henschel, Jonas Kaufmann and Violeta Urmana. He regularly performs in the Berlin Philharmonic, the London Wigmore Hall, Salle Pleyel in Paris, Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, in Tokyo, at La Scala in Milan as well as at the festivals in Lucerne, Salzburg, Edinburgh, Munich and Schwarzenberg.

Jan Philip Schulze has recorded all of Hans Werner Henze’s works for piano and premiered music by several contemporary artists.

Jan Philip Schulze trained at the Musikhochschule in Munich and at the Tschaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. Since 2004, he has been professor of “Liedgestaltung” at the Music Conservatory in Hanover.

THE MUSIC:

When The Danish Piano Duo was invited to Elb Philharmonie in Hamburg to perform a concert during the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in 2020, the dou found an almost unknown arrangement of Carl Nielsens 3rd symphony at The Royal Library.

The symphony is arranged by the composer himself and has so far only been performed at private occasions by Carl Nielsen and his piano colleague, Henrik Knudsen. The duo has had the symphony rewritten by pianist Per Salo.

The Danish Piano Duo will make a public first performance of the probably most popular symphony by Carl Nielsen at this concert in Mogens Dahl Koncertsal.

The duo will also perform a brand new piece by the german/danish composer Søren Eichberg, `2020´is complicated, so a greeting for Carl Nielsen will accour.

Furthermore Carl Nielsens Aladdin Suite has been arranged for the duo by the english conductor and composer Anthony Weeden. This specific arrangement will also be performed for the very first time at this evenings concert.

Many thanks to Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsens Legat as well as Toyota-Fonden for their financial support and to Carl-Nielsen Selskabet for their cooperation in making this concert a reality.

THE MUSIC:

One of Bach’s vast and most fascinating motets sets the theme of this Halloween concert: A hope despite the finality of life. ‘Jesu, Meine Freunde’ by Johann Franck personifies this hope put in Jesus and Bach brilliantly weaves Johann Kruger’s choral melody into a work in which the six verses of the psalm are illuminated by words from the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans. The climax is the five-part double fugue of the sixth movement in which Paul assures us that we humans are more than flesh and blood.

The ‘Three Sacred Hymns’ were composed in 1983. The Russian conductor Valery Polyansky had requested an a cappella work for his choir, and though at first Schnittke seemed reluctant, he apparently woke in the middle of the night and wrote down these three pieces, and handed the manuscript to Polyansky the following day. The work was only published posthumously. Certain melodic figures and scale passages bind the three pieces together, as does the harmonic plan. The first piece uses the two choirs antiphonally and in strict canon, one measure apart, the first choir singing in E-flat major, the second choir a minor third lower in C minor; the second piece, a dramatic supplication rising from piano to fortissimo in a single brief arch, is in C minor; while the third piece, the most harmonically varied of the three, is in E-flat major.

Lutist Sylvius Leopold Weiss was born in the same year as Johan Sebastian Bach, and the two personalities knew each other well. Bach’s cello suites are often heard in concerts, but the composers and musicians of Bach’s time were extremely productive, and the quality of the works they wrote was generally high. Weiss, for example, wrote no less than 51 suites for lye. He was a well-known virtuoso of his time, and historians point out that he inspired Bach to write for his instrument – it turned into a total of 5 fantastic lute suits. For the concert, you will be able to hear excerpts from Weiss’ suite “L’infidèle” (the Infidel). In this context, infidelity must be understood in such a way that the musical material in the suite deliberately tries to escape its French origins – here one hears daring dissonances and melodies that play with an almost Arabic-sounding expression.

The Berliner Messe, or Berlin Mass, was commissioned by Deutscher Katholikentag, a festival which is held every other year. In 1990, the festival was held in Berlin. Of course, it had been planned for several years but, the preceding winter, the hated wall dividing the city had unexpectedly fallen. Beyond the religious object of the Berliner Messe, the work has become a strong symbol of the overcoming of division and boundaries in this world and, thus, a beacon of hope in more sense than one.

In connection with a composition, the term ‘mass’ usually signifies a postponement of the five ordinarium parts, the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei, usually included in the celebration of the Roman Catholic Mass. However, but Pärt’s mass stands out: In 1990, the festival took place during Pentecost which is why he chose to supplement with three texts that belong exclusively to Pentecost.

THE MUSIC:

This is Mozart at his most welcoming meeting us in the fourth of five piano sonatas composed in 1775. This sonata is different from the others because of its slow introductory movement, amongst others. Two elegant minuettes ending in a charming allegro lets Mozart play with the octave interval.

The virtuoso Carl Philip Emanuel – the son of  the ‘Bach senior’ – was called ‘Berliner-Bach’ and ‘Hamburger-Bach’ because of his prominent role at the court of Frederik the Great and subsequently as a precentor in Hamburg, where he replaced Telemann.

He was particularly interested in the keyboard instrument and, with the short rondo in C minor, demonstrates a fantastic tour de force of changing moods and unpredictable thematic variations.

It is said that Arthur Rubinstein used the opening of Beethoven’s third piano sonata to test the grand piano before performing. Both the very first trill in parallel thirds and the extremely difficult passage with tremolos in a sixteenth figure could break the fingers of many a skilled pianist. The virtuoso four-movement sonata is dedicated to Haydn.

Fauré was a great admirer of Chopin and composed his famous nocturnes within the familiar setting of Romantic piano music. Nevertheless, these rather dark pieces of music are recognised as some of the most important works of the young Fauré. It takes a great pianistic strength to bring to life Fauré’s piano music which, with repeated listening, opens up as extremely passionate and original music with subtle syncopations and advanced harmonic shifts.

Ravel’s piano suite is inspired by three poems by Aloysius Bertrand. We traverse an amazing – and dangerous – universe populated by enticing water nymphs, death bells for a hung man with spiders crawling on him and, finally, the devil himself crawling in and out of one’s consciousness.

The work is definitely notorious for its extreme difficulty. It is magnificent and deeply fascinating music where one wonders: How is it humanly possible for one musician to realise such an orchestral work on just one set of keys?

MARC-ANDRÉ HAMELIN

The pianist who brings to life the grand piano programme of the evening has been called the ’emperor of the keys’ and an artist with ‘almost superhuman technical ability’ by the New York Times.

Marc-André Hamelin visits us for the second time and we can promise you a world-class experience when the Canadian sits down at our grand piano.

The Canadian pianist’s concerts and recordings have called for accolades all over the world – amongst others, he has received 11 Grammy Award nominations.

His career started in Montreal and, later on, Philadelphia, although

the list of tours visiting famous festivals and scenes has since covered the whole world. This has led to a significant number of awards. Marc-André Hamelin won the Carnegie Hall competition in 1985, was inducted into Gramophones’ Hall of Fame in 2015 and has been awarded with the lifetime award of the German music critics.

Marc-André Hamelin was born in Montreal and currently resides in Boston, USA.

Richard Goode is internationally recognized as one of the present’s leading interpreters of Beethoven’s piano pieces. He performs on a regular basis in Europe and the US and is a recurring soloist performing with some of the world’s finest orchestras.

The New York-residing pianist has recorded numerous of appraised albums including solo- and chamber music, to lieder and piano recitals. His recording of Beethoven’s piano recitals with The Budapest Festival Orchestra was in 2009 referred to as “a landmark recording” by Financial Times and even nominated for a Grammy. A box set of 10 CD’s containing The Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos was also nominated for a Grammy and selected for the “Gramophone Good CD Guide’.

There are numerous awards and appraisals for Goode’s virtuous interpretations of Beethoven – but he is also an acknowledged educator and mentor for the next generation of classical pianists. He teaches on a regular basis in New York and London and occasionally offers masterclasses at festivals and in concert halls in the US and Europe.

If Das wohltemperierte Klavier by Bach is “The Old Testament” of piano music, Beethoven’s piano sonatas is “The New”. Richard Goode has the last three of these masterpieces programmed for this concert – three sonatas which range widely in their expression, but also gathers around the late Beethoven’s most profound and original characteristics. There is an almost unheard level of pianistic skill, just as we experience an interest in the older musical forms as the fugue paired with innovative harmonic thinking.

With several spectacular awards and releases on the resume, the Doric Quartet has established itself as one of the most significant quartets of its generation. They are now performing in leading concert halls, including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Vienna Konzerthaus, Berlin Konzerthaus, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Louvre, Carnegie Hall and Kioi Hall Tokyo. In addition, they regularly perform at the Wigmore Hall.

The quartet was founded in 1998 and has recorded for Chandos Records since 2010. In 2019, they recorded Britten’s collected string quartets and received excellent reviews. Their Haydn recordings have also won great applause – including election of ‘Editor’s Choice’ in Gramophone and ‘Choc du Mois’ in Classica Magazine.

It is as if Haydn’s quartet, nicknamed ‘The Bird’, needs to take a preliminary run-up. Repeated tones and a marked cello bass line quickly establish that we are in C major. But, like a swift bird in the forest, the whole shebang suddenly moves to d minor before sweeping back. Small flicks in the first violin emphasize the ease and playfulness. But notice how the bird-like elements in the middle of the movement evolve into something that certainly doesn’t sound merely bright and happy.

In the final rondo of the finale, there Is plenty of folkloristic fieriness and clog dancing. The quartet ends high up in the blue sky in an ending that is more like a disappearance act than a solid full stop.

Mozart did NOT dedicate his three Prussian quartets to Friedrich Wilhelm II, who himself was an avid amateur cellist. In his notes, Mozart did write that they had been ordered by the king, but there are indications that no payment was ever made for the quartets. In any event, they were published after Mozart’s death without dedication. Paid for by the king in Berlin, or not: Rarely has a cello had such princely a voice in a string quartet.

Beethoven’s string quartet No 13 is performed here in the context of ‘Große Fuge’ (originally written as the 6th and last movement of string quartet No 13, but later published separately). It is great music, In every way, which Beethoven himself reverently referred to as his “dear” quartet. The beautiful melody of the cavatina could bring tears to eyes of Beethoven himself, despite the fact that the composer was completely deaf! Contemporaries regarded the concluding Große Fuge as “Babylonian confusion” and “As incomprehensible as Chinese” but, today, it is widely regarded as Beethoven’s biggest achievement

Julian Rachlin’s extremely exciting career has brought him together with the world’s leading conductors and orchestras. He was born in Lithuania and immigrated to Austria in 1978 where he studied with Pinchas Zukerman, amongst others, who has previously visited the Mogens Dahl Concert Hall. Here, he performed as the youngest soloist of the Vienna Philharmonic. Today, he is active on several fronts. On the chamber music scene, he performs with partners such as Martha Argerich, Itamar Golan and Mischa Maisky. In addition, he regularly conducts the most famous symphony orchestras of the world.

Magda Amara is one of the most sought-after chamber musicians in Europe. She has worked with several members of the Vienna Philharmonic as well as musicians such as Andreas Ottensamer, Matthias Bartolomey, Michael Barenboim and Michaela Girardi. She has also regularly performed with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the National Philharmonic in Kiev and the Cairo Symphony Orchestra, amongst others.

Brahms’ songs ‘Regenlied’ and ‘Nachklang’  left their impressions  in the violin sonata in G major. Often, the sonata is called the ‘Rain Sonata’ for the same reason. Not only does the common melody from the two songs clearly stand out as the main theme of the third movement but consistently punctuated rhythms from Regenlied drip throughout sonata.

The wonderful sonata in f minor is composed for the clarinet and has since been arranged for viola by Brahms himself. Despite a fast and lively final movement, one is left with warm melancholy as the main impression.

The story behind Dvorak’s opus 75 begins with an attempt to write a trio for two violins and a viola – music that a live-in student and amateur musician could play along to. Over and over, this music evolved into these four romantic pieces that exude Brahms’ enthusiasm for writing music of the intimate chamber music genre.

With a calm first movement, César Franck lets the listener believe that everything Is peace and idyll. The explosive second movement and the introverted recitativo-fantasia bring completely different emotions into play and finally build up to a beautiful and quite serene final movement.

As you know, there are three big B’s in the world of composing. Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Of course, every season, these three masters are given significant prominence in our concert programme.

The last B has even been given its very own fixed performance: Brahms’ requiem in Phillip Moll’s edition has become a stable part of Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir’s spring programme.

It is not without reason that this magnificent work has always had a large fan base. It is melodic, warm and elegant; composed by Brahms at the peak of his abilities.

In 2017, Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir was granted permission by Rundfunkchor Berlin to use their new arrangement, written for choir and two performers on one piano. It has also previously been performed in this set-up – including by Brahms himself – but, especially in recent years, there has been a growing interest in exploring the requiem in a sleek, chamber music version where Brahms’ fantastic work on the voices of the choir is given its proper place of prominence.

Ein Deutsches Requiem consists of seven movements, all of which revolve around conveying a comfort to the survivors. Perhaps Brahms composed the work as a way of coping with the grief associated with the deaths of people close to him: His mother died in 1865, when he began the work, and his friend, Robert Schumann, had died a few years before that.

By the same token, Schumann had planned exactly what Brahms now undertook, namely a requiem in the German language. ‘German’ in the title of the work In fact refers to the language and not the German people. Brahms himself has said that he would gladly have called his requiem for ‘Ein menschliches Requiem’ if this had made his intention any clearer.

Brahms: Ein Deutsches Requiem is performed by Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir, two Danish pianists, Rikke Sandberg and Tanja Zapolski, and two Swedish soloists, soprano Mette Demérus and baritone David Wijkman.

In the Italian home in a small Scottish town, it was reportedly Abba and Bee Gees that they listened to. Nevertheless, as a very young girl, Nicola Benedetti got her hands on the violin. As early as at age 10, her colossal talent sent her to Yehudi Menuhin’s renowned talent school south of London. Here, Benedetti met the German cellist Leonard Elschenbroich who was also ten years old when he started studying here. The trio’s Ukrainian-born pianist, Alexei Grynyuk, also grew up as an extremely talented prodigy. Grynyuk gave his first public performance as a 6-year-old. Today, all three are established world stars. 

You will be met by romance of the highest calibre immediately from the opening tones of the concert. Robert Schumann wrecked his piano hands through the manic training of his fingers’ independent movement (he invented an instrument to force them apart) – but that did not stop him from composing supremely romantic chamber music for piano trio.

The romance is expressed in the insistence of the music on eliciting great emotions. Then there is a whisper, then there is a shout; the melodic material is persistently penetrating and sensual in its constant alternation between light and dark, major and minor, large orchestral and small and intimate. The slow third movement is bursting with trapped pain and sadness. Not even the fiery and triumphant last movement erases the impression of the seeking, romantic soul.

Wolfgang Rihm’s modern classic within the chamber music repertoire of 1980 is full of references to romantic feelings. There are no direct quotes from romantic composers but, in his own words, Rihm wanted to pursue the innermost powers of Schumann’s music, in particular. Violent bi-polar clashes between order and chaos provide a fantastic perspective on the 19th-century quest for new horizons: How would Schumann’s music have sounded if he had lived in the 1980s?

After a brief piano introduction, the cello presents the first theme of Brahms’ large-scale piano trio. Already in the first movement, it is teeming with thematic ideas and moods. The scherzo opens with a thick rocking theme in minor. The movement returns to major and leads to the adagio, which slows one’s heart rate all the way down. Subdued piano chords strike an almost mysterious vibe before the cello’s heat eclipses the serious nature of the movement. The soft piano chords end the movement. The fourth movement returns to minor and gives the work a dramatic ending with syncopated rhythms also emphasizing the seriousness and heaviness of the piano trio.

Music in the sign of freedom and hope: Under the theme

INNER & EXTERNAL FREEDOM, Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir takes a dramatic journey into the human mind when it is pushed to the edge due to faith and conviction.

Using the world of poetry as its starting point, the evening offers up a concert programme in which words and music blend into statements of longing, loneliness, existential awakening and hopes for the future.

The evening starts with Sven-David Sandström’s solo for horn, Lamento in Lontano, and is followed by Peter Gunnar Petersson’s dark and soulful suite, Aftonland. The lyrics to the suite are four poems from the Swedish Nobel laureate Pär Lagerkvist’s collection of poems of the same name. Lagerkvist’s existential poems and Petersson’s composition are performed by Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir.

Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir continues the evening with a Danish first performance of Lasse Thoresen’s piece Prison Poems. The texts of the composition are taken from the Iranian poet Mahvash Sabet’s collection of poems of the same name.

In 2008, Mahvash Sabet was arrested in her native Iran solely based on the fact that she is a member of the Bahá’í religious minority community. Two years later, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Imprisoned in one of Iran’s toughest prisons, Sabet wrote her poems on napkins and toilet paper. With the help of friends, the poems were smuggled out, edited, translated from Persian and published under the name Prison Poems.

These are powerful poems that reflect on desperation, hope and loneliness and, at the same time, reflect how, despite adversity, a person can grow strong in both faith and spirit – and this particular field of tension has inspired Lasse Thoresen in his composition of the music to Prison Poems.

Actress Karen-Lise Mynster recites the poems of Sabet in a Danish translation.

This concert is arranged in collaboration with NJORD – New Nordic Music Biennale, the publishing house Det Poetiske Bureaus Forlag, Danish PEN and Copenhagen Light Festival.

A special thanks to Secretary General of the Danish PEN, Mille Rohde.

It is now the 12th time Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir sing Christmas in with Händel’s most popular choral work – the magnificent oratorio Messiah. This traditional concert in Holmen’s Church has been praised to the heavens by all reviewers, who have fallen in love with Mogens Dahl’s slender and crisp Baroque edition.

★★★★★★
“Mogens Dahl’s outstanding Messiah” wrote Berlingske’s reviewer Søren Schauser, and adorned it with six stars following the performance where the British Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment contributed for the first time in 2016. Politiken was also enthusiastic: “It was simple, beautiful and redeeming,” wrote Thomas Michelsen.

★★★★★★
Danish daily Berlingske 2017

★★★★★★
Danish daily Kristeligt Dagblad 2017

It is now the 12th time Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir sing Christmas in with Händel’s most popular choral work – the magnificent oratorio Messiah. This traditional concert in Holmen’s Church has been praised to the heavens by all reviewers, who have fallen in love with Mogens Dahl’s slender and crisp Baroque edition.

★★★★★★
“Mogens Dahl’s outstanding Messiah” wrote Berlingske’s reviewer Søren Schauser, and adorned it with six stars following the performance where the British Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment contributed for the first time in 2016. Politiken was also enthusiastic: “It was simple, beautiful and redeeming,” wrote Thomas Michelsen.

★★★★★★
Danish daily Berlingske 2017

★★★★★★
Danish daily Kristeligt Dagblad 2017

Truls Mørk, cello & Behzod Abduraimov, piano

Program

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827):
Sonate for cello og klaver nr. 1 i F-dur, op. 5 nr. 1
Adagio sostenuto – Allegro
Rondo. Allegro vivace

Sergej Prokofjev (1891 – 1953):
Sonate for cello og klaver i C-dur, op. 119
Andante grave
Moderato
Allegro, ma non troppo

PAUSE

Sergej Prokofjev:
Adagio for cello og klaver

Sergej Rachmaninov (1873 – 1943):
Sonate for cello og klaver i g-mol, op. 19
Lento – Allegro moderato
Allegro scherzando
Andante
Allegro mosso

Mogens Dahl Kammerkor inviterer til midsommerkoncert!

Når den nordiske sommer besynges, vibrerer alle sanser. Koncerten indeholder cremen af nordisk korlyrik, hvor der vækkes stemninger til live, der emmer af lette farver og dufte, men også af længsel og smerte.

Pär Lagerkvists tyste nordiske digt, sat i musik af svenske Gabriella Gullin, hensætter os til et øde kosmos og med I.P. Jacobsens digt ”Alle de voksende skygger” skabes en drømmende stemning, der rækker ud mod rene stjerner og tunge skyer. I Johannes V. Jensens Gensyn med Danmark er vi helt på knæ ved de danske kyster og dufter til ” en kølig yndig flora”. Svend S. Schultz har iklædt de fnuglette tekster en lys, men også melankolsk tone.

Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, Hugo Alfven og Wilhelm Stenhammer sætter toner til I.P. Jacobsens anelsesfulde Stemning, hvor blomsterne græder i skumringen. Koncerten indeholder ligeledes Jørgen Jersilds tre store romantiske korsange – musik med en usædvanlig minutiøs og stemningsskabende tekstnærhed. Her er direkte sansninger af den milde livgivende regn og blæsten i sommernatten med et fantastisk tonemaleri, der bl.a. frembringer en overdådighed af milde muld – og bladdufte.

Vi lever for og af lyset og må glædes over det og udnytte det til fulde, så længe det er her. I musikken, i kærligheden, i kunsten og i livet.

Velkommen til et genbesøg ved de danske kyster – og naturligvis den lyse nat.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827): String Quartet No. 1 in F Major, op. 18, No. 1
Allegro con brio
Adagio affettuoso ed appassionato
Scherzo: Allegro molto
Allegro

Béla Bartók (1881 – 1945): String Quartet No. 1 in a-minor, op. 7
Lento
Allegretto – Introduzione
Allegro vivace

Claude Debussy (1862 – 1918): String Quartet in g-minor, op. 10
Animé et très décidé
Assez vif et bien rythmé
Andantino, doucement expressif
Très modéré – En animant peu à peu – Très mouvementé et avec passion

It is now the 11th time Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir sing Christmas in with Händel’s most popular choral work – the magnificent oratorio Messiah. This traditional concert in Holmen’s Church has been praised to the heavens by all reviewers, who have fallen in love with Mogens Dahl’s slender and crisp Baroque edition.

★★★★★★
“Mogens Dahl’s outstanding Messiah” wrote Berlingske’s reviewer Søren Schauser, and adorned it with six stars following the performance where the British Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment contributed for the first time in 2016. Politiken was also enthusiastic: “It was simple, beautiful and redeeming,” wrote Thomas Michelsen.

★★★★★★
Danish daily Berlingske 2017

★★★★★★
Danish daily Kristeligt Dagblad 2017

It is now the 11th time Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir sing Christmas in with Händel’s most popular choral work – the magnificent oratorio Messiah. This traditional concert in Holmen’s Church has been praised to the heavens by all reviewers, who have fallen in love with Mogens Dahl’s slender and crisp Baroque edition.

★★★★★★
“Mogens Dahl’s outstanding Messiah” wrote Berlingske’s reviewer Søren Schauser, and adorned it with six stars following the performance where the British Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment contributed for the first time in 2016. Politiken was also enthusiastic: “It was simple, beautiful and redeeming,” wrote Thomas Michelsen.

★★★★★★
Danish daily Berlingske 2017

★★★★★★
Danish daily Kristeligt Dagblad 2017

Program:

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750): Præludium i Es-dur, BWV 552 (arr. Busoni)

Johann Sebastian Bach: Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659 (arr. Busoni)

Johann Sebastian Bach: Kantate nr. 140: ”Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” (arr. Busoni)

Johann Sebastian Bach: Italiensk koncert i F-dur. BWV 971
Allegro
Andante
Presto

Johann Sebastian Bach: Siciliana fra sonate i Es-dur, BWV 1031 (arr. Kempff)

Johann Sebastian Bach: Fuga i Es-dur, BWV 552 (arr. Busoni)

Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828): 4 Impromptuer, Op. 142, D. 935
Impromptu nr. 5 i f-mol
Impromptu nr. 6 i As-dur
Impromptu nr. 7 i B-dur
Impromptu nr. 8 i f-mol

The Nobel prize winner Pär Lagerkvist’s last collection of poetry, ’Aftonland’, is the poetic starting point for a moving Halloween Concert with Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir. Lagerkvist’s poems are about death, as a kind of final solution to or relief from the heart’s restlessness. Lagerkvist is preoccupied with nature as a state and as a mirror of the soul, and it is this very special mood we seek to illuminate by adopting the very different approaches to the words taken by various composers.

Sergej Prokofjev (1891 – 1953): Strygekvartet nr. 2 i F-dur, op. 92
Allegro sostenuto
Adagio
Allegro

Osvaldo Golijov (f. 1960):
Tenebrae

Leoš Janácek (1854 – 1928): Strygekvartet nr. 1 “Kreutzer”
Adagio (con moto)
Con moto
Con moto (vivace andante)
Con moto (adagio) – piu mosso

Felix Mendelssohn (1809 – 1847): Strygekvartet nr. 6 i f-mol. Op. 80
Allegro vivace assai
Allegro assai
Adagio
Finale: Allegro molt

JEFFREY MYERS – VIOLIN, RYAN MEEHAN – VIOLIN,
JEREMY BERRY – BRATSCH, ESTELLE CHOI – CELLO

Notice: The Program has been changed to the following:

Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828):

Twelve songs you can’t live without…

An den Mond  D259
Wanderers Nachtlied D224
Im Frühling
Der Tod und das Mädchen
Frühlingsglaube
An Silvia
Der Musensohn
Litanei
Ganymed
Abendstern
Sei mir gegrüsst
Erlkönig

Pause

Edward Elgar
 1857 – 1934: Sea Pictures op. 37

Slumber Song
In Haven (Capri)
Sabbath Morning at Sea
Where Corals Lie
The Swimmer

Five French Mélodies
Francis Poulenc 1899 – 1963
Voyage a Paris
Hotel

Reynaldo Hahn  1874 – 1947
Fumée
L’Heure Exquise                    

Francis Poulenc
Les Chemins de l’Amour

ALICE COOTE, MEZZOSOPRAN
JULIUS DRAKE, PIANO

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791): Strygekvartet nr. 22 i b-mol. Op. 18, nr. 2. K 589
Allegro
Larghetto
Menuetto: Moderato – Trio
Allegro assai

Béla Bartók (1881 – 1945): Strygekvartet nr. 6 SZ 114
Mesto – Più mosso, pesante – vivace
Mesto – Marcia
Mesto – Burletta. Moderato
Mesto

Felix Mendelssohn (1809 – 1847): Strygekvartet nr. 6 i f-mol. Op. 80
Allegro vivace assai
Allegro assai
Adagio
Finale: Allegro molto

CORINA BELCEA – VIOLIN, AXEL SCHACHER – VIOLIN,
KRZYSZTOF CHORZELSKI – BRATSCH, ANTOINE LEDERLIN – CELLO

PROGRAM

Alfred Schnittke (1934 – 1998):
Drei Geistliche Gesänge (1984)
Lebenslauf for four metronomes and three percussion and piano (1982)
Zwei Stücke für Orgel (1980)
Requiem (1975)

PROGRAM

Joseph Haydn (1732 – 1809): Pianotrio nr. 41 i es-mol. Hob. XV:31
Andante
Allegro ’Jakobs Drøm’

Antonín Dvorák (1841 – 1904): Pianotrio nr. 4 i e-mol ’Dumky’, op. 90
Lento maestoso – Allegro quasi doppio movimento
Poco adagio – Vivace non troppo – Vivace
Andante – Vivace non troppo – Allegretto
Andante moderato – Allegretto scherzando – Quasi tempo di marcia
Allegro
Lento maestoso

Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828): Pianotrio nr. 2 i Es-dur, op. 100
Allegro
Andante con moto
Scherzo. Allegro moderato
Allegro moderato

TRIO WANDERER:
JEAN-MARC PHILLIPS-VARJABÉDIAN – VIOLIN
RAPHAËL PIDOUX – CELLO
VINCENT COQ – PIANO

The season ticket is valid for these five concerts:

TRIO WANDERER September 2.

THE BELCEA QUARTET September 24.

ALICE COOTE and JULIUS DRAKE October 8.

THE CALIDORE QUARTET October 22.

FRANCESCO PIEMONTESI November 14.