Concerts and lectures

Mark Padmore, tenor, Julius Drake, piano

A great credit is due to Beethoven both for the form and the content of the romantic art song, the lied. In “Mailied”, (May song), to lyrics by Goethe, spring and sensual love merges in a higher synthesis – and thus the main theme is struck for many of the classics of the repertory.

In “Abendlied unterm gestirnten Himmel”, (Evening song under a starry sky), reflection is elevated to the main theme. And not only reflection, but also a profound yearning for the soul’s eternal home among the stars.

In “An die ferne Geliebte”, (For the loved one far away), we hear drifting clouds, mountain lakes, purling fountains and warbling birds while the lover sings his songs for his far-away and unattainable beloved.

Schumann’s nine songs to poems by Heinrich Heine have a refined layer of irony, but also concern themselves with love. In Winter Words Britten treats time in an impressionistic and emotional tonal idiom.

Mark Padmore and Julius Drake
Orignally Mark Padmore dreamed of a life as a clarinet player, but the choir a Kings’ College, Cambridge, made him change his mind. Baroque music was close to his heart, and his world fame has been achieved in no small measure by way of the tenor parts in Bach’s oratories and passions at the most prominent venues.

Padmore is in the world elite of lyrical tenors, and this evening we will hear him accompanied by Julius Drake, who visits us for the third time.

Programme
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827): Four lieder
Robert Schumann (1810–1856): Liederkreis op. 24. I–IX
Benjamin Britten (1913–1976): Winter Words, op. 52

PLEASE NOTE LECTURE WILL BE HELD IN DANISH!

Samuel Rachlin is one of those charismatic personalities who have supported the Mogens Dahl concert hall project all through the years. He has visited the place several times, and with great enthusiasm he has participated in defining our evenings of lectures and singing together.

His background is in journalism, and his position as the first news host at TV2 made him a known face in the whole country. But that wasn’t written in the passport at little Samuel’s birth. He was born in Siberia the son of deported Lithuanian Jews, and only arrived in Denmark nine years old.

In his book “Mig og Stalin” (Me and Stalin), 2012, he gives a moving description of a truly cosmopolitan life, which, among other things, took him back to the Siberia where his family was in captivity for 16 years, with a TV crew. Today he has settled in Italy from whence he will head for Islands Brygge for an evening of singing, with a cosmopolitan edge.

Angela Hewitts own words on the first piece:
"For sheer virtuosity and drama, the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue BWV 903 is hard to match. Probably begun in Cöthen in 1720, but revised in Leipzig ten years later, it has always been one of Bach’s most popular keyboard works, even during his own lifetime. The opening flourishes begin a toccata-like improvisation in which Bach makes use of the entire keyboard (as it was then). The arpeggios that follow provide a point of rest, although certainly not from harmonic interest. The execution of these has always been a subject of debate. Mendelssohn wrote to his sister, Fanny, after a performance of it in 1840: “I take the liberty of playing (the arpeggios) with all possible crescendos, and pianos, and fortissimos, pedal of course, and doubling the octaves in the bass.” These days a more simple approach is usually favoured. The ensuing recitative makes us wonder whether Bach perhaps wrote this work for his favourite keyboard instrument, the clavichord, as it calls for flexible dynamics and shading which, more than the harpsichord, it was able to provide. The fantasy winds down in a beautiful five-bar cods, with diminished seventh chords descending over a pedal point in the bass. The three-part fugue begins very quietly, but gradually gains momentum. The sixteenth notes drive it forward, full chords add emphasis, octaves reinforce the bass, and all ends triumphantly."

Beethoven’s piano sonata contributes with a great wealth of musical ideas unfolding in changing melodies and great dynamic contrasts through all three movements.

A quite simple and altogether prosaic tune is the germ of one of the most fascinating pieces in all of musical history, the Art of the Fugue. Angela Hewitt plays the last eight movements of this magnificent work after the intermission.

Angela Hewitt
Angela Hewitt is one of the world’s greatest pianists. There isn’t a prominent concert hall in the world she hasn’t captivated on her sold-out tours, and after having recorded Bach’s greatest piano works over a period of eleven years – which the Guardian called “one of the most awe-inspiring recordings of our time” – she has won a reputation as the Bach pianist of Bach pianists.

Programme
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750): Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, BWV 903
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827): Piano sonatas no. 31 in A-flat major, op. 110
Johann Sebastian Bach: Art of the Fugue, BWV 1080

PLEASE NOTE LECTURE WILL BE HELD IN DANISH!

“I live my life outside the comfort zone,” Ellen Hilingsø said in a magazine last year. Life as an actress entails a basic insecurity and lack of certainty about what will meet you in the next phase of your life.

Ellen Hillingsø has made optimal use of the possibilities offered her by the vicissitudes of her life and has achieved a position as a popular actress by way of her parts in television series and films that have become classics over night, “Mifune’s last song”, “Charlot and Charlotte”, and “The Bridge”, to mention but a few. Her voice is one of her many strong points. She was the narrator in the Christmas calendar “The Covenant”, and has lend her voice to The New Testament as a talking book. Not many people know that she played opposite Lauren Bacall in the shooting of a Lars von Trier film.

Her voice is also often heard giving talks, but as far as we know, this is the first time that she will be at the head of an evening of singing. Her flexibility undoubtedly will see her through.

Trio Wanderer
Jean-Marc Phillips-Varjabédian, violin, Raphaël Pidoux, cello, Vincent Coq, piano

In Mozart the pulse is being played with. The first movement of the piano trio from 1776 is notated in three-four time, but the swaying dance time is elegantly interrupted by little passages where the listener will experience a sense of a two beat. The piano is the protagonist in this beauty-seeking music which continues in a melting adagio with the violin taking the lead in carrying the melody. There is more drama afoot in the last movement where the pianist’s virtuosity is tested.

Chausson ended his days after crashing on his bicycle, in the middle of a promising career, but also with a mind haunted by depressions. The trio in G minor is one of his first great works, and it shows a great deal of temperament, French elegance and harmonic finesse.

Tchaikovsky’s trio was composed at the death of his friend, the pianist and composer Nicolai Rubinstein, and has the death march as a central theme.

Trio Wanderer
This year’s ensemble in residence at Mogens Dahl Concert Hall makes audiences in concert halls all over the world sit up, from the Berlin Philharmonics to Wigmore Hall, La Scala or opera venues and intimate stages in the US, Japan or South America. Releases at Sony Classical and, since 1999, at Harmonia Mundi have been given prominence by reviewers all over the world. The New York Times have called their Mendelssohn interpretations the new standard for this music. In the trio’s 25th anniversary year, 2012, they released a complete set of Beethoven’s piano trios. The three members of the trio are all graduates from the Conservatoire de Paris.

Programme
W. A. Mozart (1756–1791): Piano trio no. 3 in B-flat major, KV 502
Ernest Chausson (1855–1899): Trio in G minor, op. 3
Peter Tchaikovsky (1840–1893): Piano Trio in A minor, op. 50

The Tokyo Quartet:
Martin Beaver, violin, Kikuei Ikeda, violin, Kazuhide Isomura, viola, Clive Greensmith, cello

All the great composers have written music for four string instruments, a small musical entity – yet with enormous expressive possibilities.

If anyone does, Haydn manages to turn the instruments’ sonorous register to good account. In his string quartet no. 66, energy just builds and builds. The minuet sparkles, and the last movement has a charming theme of the kind that stays with you.

Modern masters have also seized the string quartet and made magic off the ensemble. In his quartet, Webern makes obeisance to the old masters Bach and Beethoven, yet in spite of the references it is an atonal piece on the premisses of modern music.

With Schubert it becomes as royal as can be, accentuated, dotted rhythms and a solemnizing alternation between major and minor recurs in the beginning and towards the end of the piece.

The Tokyo Quartet
After 43 years at the top, the spring of 2013 will offer the last opportunity to hear the Tokyo Quartet. Already in 2011 they announced that they would be stopping when two of the members notified the public that they would be resigning.

The quartet was established in 1969 at the Juilliard School of Music, but has its roots at the Toho School of Music in Tokyo, with Professor Hideo Saito as the great inspirational source for the original members of the quartet. A contract with Deutsche Grammophon laid the foundation for their position as one of the world’s greatest string quartets ever – and the rest is history.

Programme
Joseph Haydn (1732–1809): String Quartet no. 66 in G major, op. 77 no. 1, Hob. III: 81
Anton Webern (1883–1945): String Quartet in E major, op. 28
Franz Schubert (1797–1828): String Quartet no. 15 in G major, op. 161

Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir
Organist Søren Johansen
Conductor Mogens Dahl

This Maundy Thursday concert is part of the continued co-operation between the Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir and the Christian’s Church. Easter is marked with two great works for choir and one for organ.

Martin’s Mass and Pizzetti’s Requiem are two of the 1920s’ greatest sacred a cappella works. Both composers look to the distant past in their search for a musical platform after the collapse of civilization with the First World War. Though very different, they both choose to relate to renaissance and baroque poly-choral style.

The Sanctus movement of Pizzetti’s Requiem is absolutely magnificent, composed in a style based on a technique from the old Venitian masters. The enlarged Chamber Choir will unfold to a 12 part paean.

Read more about the choir at mogensdahlkammerkor.dk Programme
Frank Martin (1890–1974): Messe (1922) for two 4 part choirs
Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992): Apparition de l’Église éternelle (1932) for organ
Ildebrando Pizzetti (1880–1968): Messa da Requiem (1922–1923) for choir a cappella