Our next concert with the Solistes Européens,Luxembourg

Today we want to present to you our next concert at the Philharmonie, on 29 April 2019. It is planned around the theme of transience. Spring and summer are the most lovely synonyms for the richness of life and abundance, for growing and flourishing; but at the same time, they are a “memento mori”, a reminder of death and the transitory nature of human life. At the heart of the programme stands Robert Schumann’s grandiose Spring Symphony, overflowing with vital energy.

A new discovery, on the other hand, is a composer who is almost completely forgotten today and has disappeared from the concert programmes: Joachim Raff. He was a colleague of Johannes Brahms and Robert Schumann, and during his lifetime, one of the most successful composers in the German-speaking world. His contemporaries considered him the equal of Wagner and Brahms. His Ninth Symphony, entitled “In Summer” is one of his best-known works, and it would be well worth performing the complete symphony at one of our concerts. While that would go beyond the scope of this programme, we are pleased to present the first movement, “A Hot Day”, to you. Almost as an overture, as an appetizer.

In some respects the solo concerto also fits in with our theme, as it plays with the notion of time. It is called “Frozen in time”, and features an instrument or family of instruments which, like salt in soup, plays an indispensable yet rarely noticed role in orchestral music – and hardly ever makes an appearance as a solo instrument: the percussion. Percussionist Christoph Sietzen, a Luxembourger born in Salzburg, is a master of his craft, and we are grateful to him for finding time to take part in our concert.

Christoph König, April 2019