Programme Guide

Given his outstanding song and chamber music output, it is often overlooked that Franz Schubert also had an exceptional dramatic talent and wrote stage works such as the operas Fierabras and Alfonso und Estrella. He also composed music for theatre plays – best known today is his incidental music for Rosamunde, whose overture Schubert originally wrote for another play: Die Zauberharfe. The play takes us into the world of knights and troubadours, which was popular and considered ‘Romantic’ at the time.

Joseph Joachim, the great violinist, composer and conductor, played an important role in the history of the violin concerto in the 19th century. He not only advised Max Bruch and Antonín Dvořák on matters of playing technique, but also Johannes Brahms. Joachim premiered Brahms’s only violin concerto in 1879 under the direction of the composer. The central feature of the work is the equal status of the orchestra and solo part, whose virtuosity is always integrated into the almost symphonic structure. The main theme of the finale reveals the composer’s familiarity with the folk music of Hungary – Joachim’s homeland.

The striking fate motif of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony has become a recognisable symbol of all classical music. The work also perfectly epitomises the characteristics and innovations of Beethoven’s symphonic music: the minuet customary in Haydn and Mozart is replaced by a scherzo, and the compelling dramaturgy moves unequivocally towards the finale. Beethoven composed the transition from the third to the last movement for this purpose and designed it as a central turning point by changing from C minor to the triumphant C major. The finale’s theme resonates with music from the time of the French Revolution.