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Bring on the timpani and trumpets! The final concert of the Summer Festival begins with Mozart's "Jupiter Symphony," whose final movement impressed later composers at least as much as that of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. While Mozart's "Jupiter" shines brightly, his C minor Mass casts many shadows. This is precisely why the unfinished choral work is a secret Mozart favorite of many music lovers—powerful enough for an unforgettable finale.

It is safe to say that Constantinos Carydis has secured a distinguished place among the constellation of Europe’s leading conductors. A true musical visionary, the Greek maestro—who has previously led the Wiener Philharmoniker, Berliner Philharmoniker, the Münchner Philharmoniker, the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, and has appeared at the Edinburgh and Salzburg Festivals, the BBC Proms in London’s Royal Albert Hall, the Covent Garden Royal Opera House in London, and the Vienna State Opera—fascinates both audiences and the musicians he conducts from the podium. His performances always bear the unmistakable imprint of his artistic personality: unexpected without being self-conscious, modern without overstating their sophistication, and profoundly musical, they accommodate a bold approach to programming that fearlessly bridges British baroque, French Romanticism, and contemporary Greek music. While they may surprise audiences upon first contact, they ultimately leave them enthralled.

The garden is an essential environment for music and musicians. Not only for open-air concerts and traditional serenades, but also for stimulating the creative process and the composer's mental health and spiritual development. Composers are often inspired by nature, walking in the forests, while also needing solitude and silence. The garden provides a framework for nature, offering both freedom and longed-for solitude, home and incomprehensibility. At the festival's opening concert, the orchestral sounds of the teenage Mendelssohn, who composed thirteen string symphonies between climbing two trees, form the fence. In between, the chamber works of the more mature author and two works by the other resident composer, Jörg Widmann, can be heard. Intimacy and playfulness meet in the four-hand piece by Izabella Simon and Dénes Várjon, and in the Mendelssohn song bouquet, whispered declarations of love are heard in the shade of abundant foliage. Widmann's performance and arrangement of Mendelssohn's beautiful slow movement is a highlight, but the composer also pays tribute to Schumann for a few album pages.

Four works - four completely different musical worlds. Two composers from two eras, yet behind these many contrasts there is some pleasant unity. Perhaps it is genius, perhaps the love behind the sounds. In the first half of the concert, entertainment plays the main role. First, Jörg Widmann, who has just left school, proves that the wild pulsation of techno can also be beautiful, and that music based on monotonous foundations can suddenly turn into a complex six-part canon. This is followed by what many consider Mendelssohn's best chamber work, the sometimes playful, sometimes moving, but always extremely melodious mature trio. After the break, contrasts are much more strained against each other, as passing away confronts youth, an orchestral sound replaces the chamber line-up, and this time Mendelssohn becomes the novice and Widmann the mature composer. The latter commemorates the famous pianist Lars Vogt, who died in 2022 at the age of 52, while the former, with his unnumbered piano concerto, is building on classical traditions and is currently establishing his own rank among composers.

Everything is more mysterious at night. The garden too. Our ears become sensitive to the slightest sound, our eyes search for familiar shapes. One of the most special events of the festival is the night concert, which starts in the open air and then continues in a chapel that seems even more mysterious and sacred under the cover of night. The program begins with a string sound born out of nowhere, a melody written for solo cello by Jörg Widmann, and culminates in Mendelssohn's youthful sextet for five strings and a piano. Everything in between revolves around the theme of night and nature. In the Mendelssohn song selection, the moon and the starry sky immediately appear, the next song sings about the silence of the night, then we hear the poet's love reverie in the silent forest, who compares his heart to the moon, and finally Suleika casts a dream on the narrator's eyes. And the dream comes in the form of Widmann's experimental piece, reminiscent of Bartók's night music, but stretching to jazz, in which the twelve notes of the piano remind us of the unusual time of the concert.

It would be difficult to find more apt words for the relationship between music and nature, for expressing the power of singing, for describing the soaring joy of making music together, for conveying the velvety farewell of an uplifting festival that lives with us for days, than Sándor Weöres' words that encompass universes: "open green wing". This spaciousness, this naturalness and this airiness permeate the closing concert, where songs are performed with and without lyrics, and where the resident composer, Jörg Widmann, and the two artistic directors, Izabella Simon and Dénes Várjon, also perform solo, before, after a few chamber pieces, a true symphonic sound closes the 2025 Arcus Temporum. Mendelssohn's songs are the focus of the concert. In the pieces of Songs Without Lyrics, the piano really sings. With Jörg Widmann's homage, Mendelssohn's sounds receive a special additional layer, just as songs about holiness, fear, loneliness and sunshine form an exciting unity with melodies without words. Finally, the Basilica lets the listeners go on their way with the sounds of liberated joy.

Founded in 1981, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe is one of the world’s most esteemed chamber orchestras. Comprised of top musicians from across Europe, the orchestra collaborates with leading conductors and soloists worldwide. What unites its musicians is a shared artistic vision that transcends borders and nationalities. The orchestra has recorded hundreds of acclaimed albums, many of them for the prestigious classical music label Deutsche Grammophon.

Is it jazz, musical, or opera? Is it American or European? It’s hard to say for sure when it comes to the American music of the early twentieth century, influenced as it was by exiles. The Chamber Orchestra of Europe present arias with a captivating Broadway flair, as if tailor-made for the brilliant and shimmering voice of South African soprano Golda Schultz, whose career is fast on the rise at the world’s major opera houses. Immigrants Stravinsky, Korngold, and Weill meet second-generation Americans Gershwin and Bernstein – their music reveals both personal dislocation and bold innovation. These works are contrasted with Beethoven’s concise and humorous Symphony No. 8 as the Chamber Orchestra of Europe once again demonstrates its top credentials as a Beethoven orchestra.

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe (COE), founded in 1981 by former members of the European Community Youth Orchestra, has long been one of the world's leading orchestras. Still organized as a project-based independent ensemble, this ensemble has been a regular guest at the Musikfest since 1994, and this year marks its twelfth appearance. With Robin Ticciati, Chief Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Music Director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and newly appointed Honorary Member of the COE, the program showcases the richness of music from the first half of the 20th century. All of the composers featured in the program were closely connected to a wide variety of musical movements, thus demonstrating a truly pluralistic approach to style, yet never questioning tonality in their works of great expressive density. And when the South African soprano Golda Schultz sings songs and arias by Gershwin, Weill, Korngold and Bernstein at her music festival debut with her wonderfully warm, extremely expressive and technically flawless voice, then happiness is complete!

South African soprano Golda Schultz, the ‘glorious’ star of 2020’s Last Night, returns to the Proms with songs by Bernstein, Gershwin, Weill and others. Bask in the sultry heat of the Deep South in ‘Summertime’ from Porgy and Bess; feel the intensity of first love in ‘Somewhere’ from West Side Story. A programme of contrasting moods and colours also includes Schreker’s sensuous Chamber Symphony – glittering and mercurial – and the bold, folk-infused dances of Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird.