8th Symphony Concert - schedule, program & buy tickets

Richard Strauss

"Metamorphoses"
Ludwig van Beethoven

Symphony No. 9 in D minor op. 125

Performers
Daniele Gatti Conductor
Sara Blanch Soprano
Christa Mayer alto
Bernard Richter Tenor
Georg Zeppenfeld Bass
Saxon State Opera Choir Dresden

The traditional benefit concert on Palm Sunday has a long history in Dresden. In 1846 and in the revolutionary year of 1849, Richard Wagner conducted Ludwig van Beethoven's 9th Symphony as court conductor. However, the work was first heard in the Saxon residence as early as 1838 in a concert in the Royal Palace in the Great Garden. The program spans an arc between mourning and hope: Richard Strauss' instrumental work "Metamorphosen", composed in 1945 in the face of the destroyed cultural sites of Europe, is a sonorous requiem for a sunken world. Beethoven's Ninth, on the other hand, leads to a vision of humanity and reconciliation with Schiller's "Ode to Joy".

Ludwig van Beethoven:
Symphony No. 9

"It is the beginning of the fourth movement that gives cellos and basses a special task. The previous 45 minutes seem to me like a mountain range whose rugged peaks rise above the clouds - great beauty next to rough rocks. But after a sudden and violent outburst, the recitative begins, whose motif changes everything when the cellos and basses play as if they were one voice entering into a dialog with everything that has gone before and which leads into the famous melody that everyone can probably sing along to."

Matthias Wilde
cellist

Subject to change without notice.