Program

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.

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:

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.

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.