Composer

Quatuor Agate’s biography tells the story of how its four players joined forces to prepare for a concert that was destined never to happen. The French string quartet, inspired by the rehearsal process, overcame that initial setback to make its debut a decade ago and progress to become one of the finest among today’s young chamber groups. It pairs Haydn’s tuneful Op. 20 No. 4 with the equally melodious second of Korngold’s string quartets, written shortly before he made his first visit to Hollywood in 1933.

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Quatuor Agate

Wigmore Hall

The Czech Pavel Haas Quartet bring their characteristic joie de vivre to three engaging quartets, by composers who reached across the Atlantic to explore new musical avenues.

Pavel Haas Quartet

The Queen's Hall

The Lucerne Festival Orchestra appears in truly massive forces for this concert: Richard Strauss’s magnificently colorful An Alpine Symphony calls for 64 strings, quadruple woodwinds, eight horns onstage — and twelve more offstage — plus four trumpets and four trombones, two tubas, two harps, organ, celesta, and an enormous battery of percussion. 

Lucerne Festival Orchestra | Jakub Hrůša | Ray Chen

KKL Luzern Concert Hall

GTMF Concertmaster Madeline Adkins performs Korngold’s lush, film-inspired Violin Concerto before the Festival Orchestra concludes the program with Beethoven’s eternal and appropriately cinematic ode to nature, the “Pastoral” Symphony No. 6.

Festival Orchestra: Beethoven & Korngold

Jackson Hole High School

Enjoy a behind-the-scenes look as Sir Donald Runnicles and the orchestra rehearse for the weekend Festival Orchestra concerts with violinist Madeline Adkins.

Open Rehearsal: Beethoven & Korngold

“The Journey Home” offers a personal reflection within our American Adventures season, shaped by conductor Leonard Slatkin’s own musical path and the works that have accompanied him along the way. Cindy McTee’s Circuits crackles with electric energy and brilliant orchestral interplay. Voyager 130, a piece written by Slatkin’s son, looks outward and inward at once, inspired by space exploration yet grounded in memory and connection. Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3 was written after the composer’s emigration from Russia to America, and is the music of longing, resilience, and the profound pull of home. 

The Journey Home

Riverwalk Center

With a career spanning three decades, the multiple GRAMMY® Award-winning Pacifica Quartet has achieved international recognition as one of the finest chamber ensembles performing today. Known for delivering performances that are “engrossing, characterful … with a luminescent tranquillity [and] spine-tingling intensity” (The New York Times), the Quartet is celebrated for its virtuosity, exuberant performance style, and fearless repertory choices. Its sound, distinguished by “warmth of phrasing, dynamic control and superbly coordinated ensemble balance” (Gramophone Magazine), has solidified the ensemble as one of the most essential voices in American chamber music.

Pacifica Quartet

Maverick Concert Hall

The Spanish conductor with “more [charisma] than anybody else” (Bachtrack), reunites with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for his first-ever performance on the Hollywood Bowl stage. Roberto González-Monjas leads Brahms’ fourth and final symphony, a tragic yet profound piece that critic Eduard Hanslick compared to a dark well: “The longer we look into it, the more brightly the stars shine back.”

Mozart & Brahms

Hollywood Bowl

Elena Urioste and Tom Poster explore an idea first floated in The Jukebox Series, their compelling pandemic project to bring together works united by shared threads of beauty and authentic expression rather than their relationship to any -ism or arbitrary historical period. The mood for each half of their recital is set by impassioned works by Mark Simpson and Clarice Assad, both created for the duo during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Elena Urioste violin; Tom Poster piano

Film music fan or classical music lover? The last Friday concert of the season offers both: We're daring daredevils, sailing with our audience and Erich Wolfgang Korngold over shimmering waves, setting off with Gustav Mahler into the dawn of young, new worlds. No screen pirates, it is said, were as elegant as those whom Erich Wolfgang Korngold honored with his dazzling music! The overture to The Sea Hawk is actually part of a film score, and Korngold's violin concerto also draws its most beautiful themes from various scores composed for the silver screen. 

Departure

Beethoven Hall

Chaos, whistles, angry heckles, and even physical altercations: When Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring premiered in Paris in 1913, the audience was outraged by a real scandal. What music, pounding, orgiastic, of almost obscene sensuality! And then there was the subject matter: a pagan ritual celebrating spring and fertility, including the sacrifice of a virgin. Shocking! Often, however, it is precisely the most heated waves that calm down particularly quickly. 

Scandal

Cologne Philharmonie

"The Fantastic" is the theme of this season's chamber concerts in the Apollosaal, based on the season's first opera premiere, Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann . Musicians of the Staatskapelle Berlin have developed programs that approach this idea and concept, which play a key role in music, in a variety of ways. Ranging from the Baroque to the present day, with a special focus on the Romantic period, "The Fantastic" will be explored with a variety of chamber music works in diverse ensembles.

Chamber Concert IX

Berlin State Opera

At the age of 22, Richard Strauss traveled to Rome and Naples. He subsequently captured his impressions in a composition: "From Italy." He called this work a "symphonic fantasy"—it is no longer a symphony (despite its four movements), but it is not yet a symphonic poem either. The third movement, "On the Beach of Sorrento," unfolds a fascinating, almost impressionistic soundscape, unusual for Strauss. The composer spoke of a "mood picture," an interweaving of natural sounds (wind, water, birdcalls) with his own feelings.

Italy trip

Bochumer Symphoniker

Guest performance in Bad Elster »Soundscapes of Classical Music«

Heidenheim Nature Theatre

Two pinnacles of film music, both born in 1938. From his gilded exile in Hollywood, Korngold poured grand, ardent melodies into his sensual orchestrations and magnified the adventures of Errol Flynn, aka Robin Hood. Prokofiev, back in a locked-down USSR, signed with Sergei Eisenstein an epic monument of cinema, whose apotheosis would be the Battle on the Ice sealing the victory of Alexander, Prince of Novgorod. Layers of strings and torrents of lyricism in the West, sordid chords on a barbaric orchestra in the East.

Alexander Nevsky / Omer Meir Wellber

Maison de la Radio et de la Musique

Westphalian Music Festival Hamm

Gut Kump, Hamm

Kurhaus, Hamm

The Chinese-born New Zealand conductor Tianyi Lu makes her San Francisco Symphony debut with Rimsky-Korsakov’s cinematic orchestral showpiece Scheherazade, paired with the first Symphony performances of Iranian-American composer Iman Habibi’s Zhiân, dedicated to “the brave people of Iran, in the hope of better days ahead.” Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s side job as a film composer likely saved his life. In 1938, the Jewish former prodigy fled Vienna for Hollywood; five years later, he became a US citizen. His violin concerto, performed here by María Dueñas, was written for his neighbor, none other than Jascha Heifetz, who helped ensure that the violin writing was perfectly pitched between lyricism and virtuosity.

Scheherazade

Davies Symphony Hall

Katharina Wincor | Dukas: The Sorcerer's Apprentice

The Bell, Bremen

Thrills abound in this cinematically inspired program, with Herrmann’s “Psycho Suite” setting the stage for María Dueñas’s electrifying performance of Korngold’s Violin Concerto — infused with the lush, film-score atmosphere of 1930s Hollywood.

Toronto Symphony Orchestra: María Dueñas Plays Korngold

Meridian Arts Centre

This grand season finale is a celebration of cinema's most unforgettable scores — from golden-age swashbuckling to modern-day heroes. Hear Erich Kornhold's lush Adventures of Robin Hood, Mancini's beloved Moon River and Pink Panther and the vibrant Black Panther Suite by Ludwig Göransson. After intermission, our Youth Solo Winner takes center stage before we launch into Beauty and the Beast, Mission: Impossible, Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter. The evening ends in true epic fashion with music from Star Wars.

Hollywood Pops!

Juneau-Douglas High School

BNY Classics showcases unforgettable performances by your Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, featuring timeless masterpieces, thrilling premieres, and renowned guest artists.

Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts

From the pen of the composer who pioneered the art of original film music, making it symphonic in scope and sophisticated in feel, comes Korngold’s glorious Violin Concerto that, not surprisingly, includes allusions to those movie scores. In the spotlight is Maria Dueñas, an in-demand star of the violin world. The concerto is lyrical, rapturous, with a finale alive with spectacular pyrotechnics. To conclude the concert, Dvořák’s Seventh Symphony, filled with Bohemian rhythms (like the exciting sounds of the “furiant,” an aptly named dance in the third movement), is one of his most beloved works.

Dvořák & Korngold

Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center

Pre-College Orchestra Conducted by Adam Glaser | Beyond the Stars: Music of Film and Imagination

The Juilliard School

Nino Rota had every reason to be happy in 1973 – at least for a short time: his music for Francis Ford Coppola’s film The Godfather was initially nominated for an Oscar, but was suddenly removed from the list. During this time, the Italian composer wrote his clarinet trio, which shows him from both a romantic, yearning and humorous side. Rota did win the Oscar two years later. The melodic arcs in the Phantasy Quintet by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams are shrouded in mist. These elegiac sounds blend 16th and 17th century idioms with moments of English folk song. Just as Vaughan Williams transformed his most successful film music for Scott of the Antarctic into his seventh symphony, Erich Wolfgang Korngold incorporated music from many films into his concert music. The sonorous passion so typical of his style also pervades his large-scale Piano Quintet in E major op. 15, where exuberant intensity and eruptions of sound alternate with the most delicate lyricism and airy sentiment in the smallest of spaces.

7. Chamber Music Concert

Liederhalle Cultural and Congress Center

Founded in Vienna in 2019 and based on the principles of “chaos” in art, science, and philosophy, the Chaos String Quartet has quickly established itself on the international music scene. The ensemble, comprised of musicians from Germany, Hungary, Italy, and the Netherlands, has been selected as a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist for 2023–2025. As part of this program, they frequently record for BBC Radio 3 and perform at some of the UK’s most prestigious festivals and concert halls, including Wigmore Hall, the Cheltenham Music Festival, Britten Pears Arts, and the Norfolk and Norwich Festival.

Chaos String Quartet

Konservatorium Bern

While you sip coffee and savor decadent desserts, your gifted host, curator, and pianist Orli Shaham guides you through an afternoon of chamber music by Nadia Boulanger, Paul Hindemith, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, performed by principal musicians of Pacific Symphony in the intimate setting of the Samueli Theater.

Romantic Virtuosity

Segerstrom Center for the Arts

A trumpet sounds an ominous fanfare, the orchestra cries out, and Mahler’s Fifth Symphony thunders into life. But that’s just the beginning – and, after all, this is Mahler! 68 minutes later, the whole orchestra is punching the sky in triumph. It’s an epic struggle from darkness to light, as powerful as any Hollywood blockbuster and every bit as colourful; filled with horn calls, dark visions and, of course, Romantic music’s most passionate love letter – the famous Adagietto that Mahler wrote for his young wife, Alma.

Vasily Petrenko: Mahler x Korngold

Royal Albert Hall

A trumpet sounds an ominous fanfare, the orchestra cries out, and Mahler’s Fifth Symphony thunders into life. But that’s just the beginning – and, after all, this is Mahler! 68 minutes later, the whole orchestra is punching the sky in triumph. It’s an epic struggle from darkness to light, as powerful as any Hollywood blockbuster and every bit as colourful, filled with horn calls, dark visions and, of course, Romantic music’s most passionate love letter – the famous Adagietto that Mahler wrote for his young wife Alma.

Mahler x Korngold

"How far should our grief go, how far may it go, without uprooting us?"
Paul
After the death of his wife Marie, Paul lives a withdrawn and isolated life in his apartment. He only remains in contact with his friend Frank and Brigitta, who runs his household. But when Paul meets the dancer Marietta on the street, who bears a striking resemblance to Marie, his life, marked by grief, takes a turn: While Paul tries to make Marietta more and more like his deceased wife, the inner conflict between reality and ideal becomes increasingly overwhelming. Marietta initially plays along, but refuses to allow her independence and freedom to be restricted.

The dead city

Staatstheater Hannover

2nd Academy Concert

“With her gorgeous sound—dense, warm, and brilliant—and her immaculate technique, [María] Dueñas is already at the top” (Bachtrack). The Gen-Z violinist makes her highly anticipated return to Walt Disney Concert Hall with Korngold’s mesmerizing and theatrical Violin Concerto.

Dvořák and Korngold

Walt Disney Concert Hall

London Symphony Orchestra

Musikverein Wien

In the Mahler Hall, musicians from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra will surprise you with a selection of different works by different composers at each concert.

Chamber Music

Vienna State Opera

By the time Korngold had begun his 1945 Violin Concerto, the Austrian composer had scored the soundtracks for fifteen Hollywood films. You’ll hear that cinematic sheen in his wonderful concerto, from its sweeping opening to the helter-skelter hoe-down of the finale.

London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Antonio Pappano

Barbican Centre

Celebrate the ingenuity, independence, and pure joy of American music. In five concerts over four days, pianists-in-residence Peter Dugan, Avery Gagliano, and Jonathan Mamora will be joined by mezzo-soprano Kara Dugan and local musicians to explore the ways music reflects the American experience.

Cliburn Festival America 250: American Mosaic

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

Be transported through lush landscapes with Respighi’s The Pines of Rome. From playful moments in the Villa Borghese, to the moonlit serenity of the Janiculum, to the mystical sounds of the Appian Way at dawn, this is a captivating journey among the iconic pine trees of the Eternal City.

Respighi's The Pines of Rome

Salt Palace Convention Center

Chamber Music in the Brahms-Saal

Henley Symphony Orchestra’s 55th season continues with a flourish in Reading Concert Hall with an exhilarating programme of some of the greatest orchestral music of the 20th century American classical repertoire. Gershwin, Copland, Barber, and Bernstein were all prominent American composers who cultivated a distinct American sound by blending European traditions with American folk and jazz influences.

March 2026 Concert

Reading Concert Hall

A concert like none other! Maestro Adam Flatt welcomes performance poet Frank Oden to share the stage with the Newport Symphony Orchestra!

Listening for Shakespeare

Newport Performing Arts Center

This is the music that shaped modern cinema. Steiner’s landmark 1933 score for King Kong earned him the moniker “The Father of Film Music.” Stéphane Denève conducts Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra, the Nietzschean tone poem Stanley Kubrick used in the opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Denève + Hadelich: The Hollywood Sound

New World Center

Get ready for an evening where cinematic drama and symphonic grandeur collide. The night opens with Bernard Herrmann’s suspenseful Psycho: A Short Suite, arranged by Palmer. Violinist Nancy Zhao then takes center stage for Korngold’s lush and romantic Violin Concerto. The evening concludes with Strauss’ awe-inspiring tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra, famously immortalized in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Mind Warp

The Long Center for the Performing Arts

History is replete with turning points, and with the "Eroica" (Heroic), Beethoven forever changed the idea of what a symphony could be. Beethoven’s passion rises to the forefront in this work, using broad strokes of sound to convey the very nature of humanity while reimagining a future for music filled with endless possibilities. With his deft mastery of late-Classical music, Markus Stenz is a perfect fit to lead a piece which advances the symphonic genre into a full exploration of what it means to be human.

Beethoven Symphony No. 3 "Eroica"

Denver Performing Arts Complex

Friday Concert No. 4

Volkshaus Jena

Soloists of the Maggio Academy

Paggeria Parco Mediceo di Pratolino

New York Philharmonic’s Audrey Wright Plays Zwillich Violin Concerto

Crosstown Concourse

University of Memphis

Czech baritone Jiří Rajniš is making his mark on prestigious international stages, including the first-ever performance of Rusalka at La Scala. His recital offers an unexpected pairing of songs by Korngold and Mahler. The second half of the programme shifts to a lighter tone with his favorite Neapolitan songs.

Czech Chamber Music Society • Jiří Rajniš

Rudolfinum

Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a decidedly playful overture by a very youthful Felix Mendelssohn (composed when he was just 17 years old). This sparkling work captures the magic of the fairy kingdom, the humor of the lovers’ entanglements, and the grandeur of Theseus’ court. Violinist Rachel Barton Pine returns to play Korngold’s Violin Concerto — a lush and romantic work that glows with cinematic beauty and emotional depth — bridging the worlds of classical music and Hollywood film scores. Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune is dreamlike music inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem about a faun’s sensual reverie that paints a lush and languid musical landscape, and a sense of wonder. Stravinsky’s ballet Petrushka tells the story of a tragic puppet brought to life by a magician, set against the vibrant backdrop of a Russian fair. All four of these lively pieces of music will fill us with a lightness of being.

Playful Pursuits

Overture Center for the Arts

The South Korean conductor Eun Sun Kim makes her debut at Berwaldhallen with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, alongside the Polish pianist Piotr Anderszewski, performing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, one of only two piano concertos he wrote in a minor key. The concert begins with the overture to Austrian composer Maria Theresia von Paradis' comic opera Der Schulkandidat (The School Candidate).

Mozart, Korngold & von Paradis

Berwaldhallen

The Purcell School Symphony Orchestra returns to Cadogan Hall with a romantic programme of big tunes and lush orchestration, inspired by the movies of the 1940s.

This year’s Purcell School Concerto Competition winner, Julia Majewska, is an exciting young violinist who brings passion and verve to the fireworks of the exquisite Korngold Violin Concerto.

Part of Howard Hanson’s Symphony from 1930 was John Williams’ template for E.T., and Doreen Carwithen was the first British woman to write consistently for Hollywood. Walton’s orchestral showpiece from the film The First of the Few completes the programme.

The Purcell School Symphony Orchestra

Cadogan Hall 

A year of political and musical upheaval. The title of French composer Elsa Barraine's 2nd symphony is the Russian word for »war«, a work commissioned by the French Ministry for Culture in 1938. After the annexation of Austria and the Munich Agreement war was in the air, and subsequent events proved her right. But the work hints at a distant future. The war in the 1st movement is followed by a funeral march in the 2nd before the music returns to life in the finale.

6th Sunday & Monday Symphonic Concerts

Alte Oper

Among them, parallel trajectories echo each other with poignant force. Korngold and Schoenberg, two major figures in Viennese music, had to flee Nazism. The former found refuge in Hollywood where he revolutionized film music; the latter reconstructed his musical language in the United States. Their works bear the scars of this uprooting, between nostalgia and audacity. Pablo Casals and Roberto Gerhard, Spanish exiles, embody resistance through music. Casals, an opponent of Franco, transformed El cant dels ocells into a hymn of freedom. Gerhard, a disciple of Schoenberg, blended avant-garde and Catalan folklore in a unique style, shaped by his exile in England. Arvo Pärt, Olga Podgaiskaya, and Samir Odeh-Tamimi extend this reflection on wandering and creation. Pärt, forced to leave Soviet Estonia, found refuge in timeless music. Podgaiskaya and Odeh-Tamimi, heirs to these journeys, in turn question boundaries and shifting identities. An evening resonating with the echoes of a torn 20th century and the persistence of a beauty born of absence. A world concert where each note echoes a lost land, but also the hope of a new beginning.

Exiles #2

Opéra Comédie

Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto begins with a crack of the whip. It conjures up a provocative and colorful music in the hall. The French-Canadian Louis Lortie ignites the necessary keyboard fireworks, while Simone Young conducts the WDR Symphony Orchestra for the first time. She began her career at the Cologne Opera. Today, the Australian is one of the world's most distinguished conductors and was the first woman to conduct the Bayreuth "Ring." With Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Symphony in F-sharp, she offers the opulent late work of an Austrian who, after fleeing the Nazis, rose to global fame in Hollywood's dream factory.

Shimmering - Simone Young & Ravel

Museum Ludwig

In the 2025/26 season, three chamber concerts will again take place in the Mainz-Weisenau Synagogue.

3rd Chamber Concert in the Synagogue

Alte Synagoge Mainz-Weisenau

Hailed as a “legend of the cello” by The New Yorker, Marcy Rosen joins forces with GRAMMY Award-winning violist Kim Kashkashian and the “invariably energetic” Catalyst Quartet (New York Times) for a rare performance of Erich Korngold’s Sextet in D Major—a work full of bustling energy and sweeping melodies. Against All Odds showcases music by composers who faced significant hardship and oppression during their lives.

Catalyst Quartet Kim Kashkashian, viola Marcy Rosen, cello

Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

With the world premiere of his one-act opera, VIOLANTA, the 18-year-old Erich Wolfgang Korngold shifted overnight from child prodigy to one of the leading opera composers of his generation. For VIOLANTA not only heralded the arrival of a young maestro who was as independent as he was variegated in his musical palette, who had an unerring feel for how to render his vision on stage, and who could write melodies that were both expressive and catchy to boot; the 75-minute work to a libretto by Hans Müller, later to be known for co-writing THE WHITE HORSE INN, also served notice that Korngold had caught a contemporary Viennese mood that encapsulated Art Nouveau, psychoanalysis and an end-of-days atmosphere, a quintessence framed by Freud, Klimt and Schnitzler – all mirrored perfectly in the storyline: Violanta, the wife of Venice’s governor, plots during Carnival to avenge, through assassination, her sister, who committed suicide after being seduced by Prince Alfonso. When the moment comes, however, she acknowledges her true motive: to snuff out her own desire to abandon herself to passion. She sacrifices herself to free herself from “lust and guilt”.

Violanta

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Mozart and Korngold are separated by a century and a half, but both fascinated the musical world as prodigies in their time. In his "Sinfonia concertante," Mozart features four wind instruments - oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon - playing together and against each other. This sonic diversity creates exciting dialogues between the instruments, as they compete with each other but also harmonize perfectly. The solo parts are performed by wind players from the Dresden Philharmonic. The second work of the evening, Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Symphony in F sharp major, takes us into a completely different world. Korngold, known for his film compositions, creates opulent soundscapes in this symphony, filled with passion and drama. The symphony is full of energy, profound emotions, and a captivating blend of classical musical language and the grand cinematic elements that characterize the composer. The concert is conducted by Eun Sun Kim, known for her precise and passionate conducting, making her debut on the podium of our orchestra.

Mozart and Korngold

Palace of Culture

Korngold Mackeben Slatkin Bernstein

Gasteig HP8

Guest conductor Josep Vicent leads the orchestra in a captivating concert starting with Falla’s Three Cornered Hat Suite and featuring Korngold’s emotionally rich Violin Concerto that will delight you and elevate the evening with its lyrical beauty. Falla’s El amor brujo and Márquez’s Danzón No. 2 completes the program in a lively homage to Flamenco, Latin dance and Spanish passion.

Latin Rhythms and Hollywood Drama

Ohio Theatre

Observe a working rehearsal as the musicians and conductor put the finishing touches on the weekend’s concert program on Friday, January 16 at 10AM. Doors open at 9AM. Tickets are $17.14; coffee and donuts are included!

Friday Coffee Dress – Latin Rhythms and Hollywood Drama

The Snowman

Experience a journey like no other, from the exhilarating pace of John Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine to the lush romanticism of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Violin Concerto, brought to life by rising star, Aubree Oliverson. After intermission, be transported to a magical realm with Stravinsky’s The Firebird, presented in its complete brilliance, filled with vibrant colors, rhythmic energy and lush harmonies. It’s paired with stunning visuals that amplify the drama and enchantment of this timeless masterpiece."

Shelley Conducts Stravinsky's Firebird

Katharina Wincor, in her Hallé conducting debut, will be joined by Anna Lapwood to perform Joseph Jongen’s Symphonie concertante. Composed in 1926, this electrifying piece has been cemented as one of the greatest twentieth-century works for organ and orchestra. From resounding opening to blazing end, we have the rare opportunity to hear the organ take a virtuosic starring role.

Anna Lapwood Plays…

The Bridgewater Hall

Katharina Wincor, in her Hallé conducting debut, will be joined by Anna Lapwood to perform Joseph Jongen’s Symphonie concertante, celebrating the ‘king of instruments’. Composed in 1926, this electrifying piece has been cemented as one of the greatest twentieth-century works for organ and orchestra. From resounding opening to blazing end, we have the rare opportunity to hear the magnificent Bridgewater Hall organ take a virtuosic starring role. Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier is a firm audience favourite, and the composer’s influence is woven throughout Korngold’s Schauspiel-Ouvertüre, which opens the programme. Premiering when Korngold was just 14 – having already had huge success with earlier works including his Der Schneemann (The Snowman) ballet at age 11 – the overture has many flavours of his later cinematic works.

The Hallé – Anna Lapwood Plays...

It couldn't be more Christmassy! The anticipation of the upcoming holidays is audible in this concert full of Christmas tunes, sleigh rides, and Christmas wishes. The focus is on the music for Erich Wolfgang Korngold's fairytale ballet "The Snowman": Colombine and her admirer Pierrot attempt to escape from the clutches of Uncle Pantaloon – and succeed with the help of a snowman. The story is narrated. Finally, things get particularly festive with Otto Nicolai's Christmas Overture, featuring ever-changing variations of the chorale "Vom Himmel hoch."

Christmas & Fairy Tales

Berliner Philharmonie

Celebrate the magic of Christmas with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra in the Queen Elisabeth Hall. Clara’s journey with The Nutcracker sweeps you into a fairytale of romance and wonder, as Tchaikovsky’s heartwarming music ignites the festive spirit in all ages. Under the baton of Nicolas Altstaedt, who also shines as cello soloist in the elegant Rococo Variations, the orchestra brings a sparkling programme of winter treasures to life. From iconic melodies to hidden gems, this Christmas gala promises a night of joy and splendour.

Christmas gala with Nicolas Altstaedt

Queen Elisabeth Hall

Erich Wolfgang Korngold was just eleven years old when he composed the ballet The Snowman . The piece's musical brilliance caused such a sensation that even the emperor took notice of the child prodigy's creation and commissioned a performance at the Imperial and Royal Court Opera. This year, excerpts from The Snowman, reminiscent of Tchaikovsky's great ballets, will open the Christmas concert, in which the KSO and the City Theater Chorus will strike a festive, contemplative, and cheerful tone—including Mozart's Ave verum corpus and Leroy Anderson's exhilarating Sleigh Ride .

Christmas concert

Konzerthaus Klagenfurt

The irresistible sway of Johann Strauss’s An der schönen blauen Donau has made it arguably the most famous waltz of all time.

The Blue Danube

MediaCityUK

When the days get shorter, the temperatures drop, we need hats, scarves, and gloves, and our breath creates clouds in the air—then one of the most wonderful times of the year begins! Soon the first delicate snowflakes fall, becoming thicker and softer, and finally the snow lies so deep that we can have snowball fights, build snow huts, and snowmen. And if you make friends with one of these snowmen, you can learn a lot of things you never even imagined! Because a snowman is much more than just three round snowballs stacked on top of each other.

The Journey of the Snowflakes

Bonn Opera House

Concert in Madrid

National Music Auditorium, Madrid

Exiled in the United States, Bartók and Korngold poured their longing for home into their concertos—one steeped in Hungarian traditions, the other blending Viennese charm with Hollywood melodies. Showcasing the brilliant Simone Lamsma, this concert promises an enchanting journey full of emotion, cinematic splendour, and symphonic brilliance. A magical evening where mesmerizing melodies will allow you to discover a rich cultural heritage.

Echoes of Europe in Hollywood

Place des Arts

Discover the Happy Symphonic Hour version of our December 3 program and be swept away by nostalgic European sounds and iconic Hollywood melodies. This 60-minute concert also offers a chance to meet comedian Philippe-Audrey Larrue-St-Jacques, who will be hosting the evening. Plus, you’ll have the opportunity to discover—or rediscover—the incredible violinist Simone Lamsma, acclaimed for her outstanding performance in 2024.

From Europe to the Movies

“More for a Caruso than a Paganini,” Korngold said, is how he wrote his Violin Concerto. This means: a bold embrace of lyrical richness. Renaud Capuçon, with his rich, velvety violin tone, is the ideal interpreter, and Shostakovich’s 11th Symphony provides a stark counterpoint. This symphony is like a history lesson. Its title, “The Year 1905,” refers to Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg and the massacre of demonstrating workers in front of the Tsar’s palace. The tension, the confrontation between the people and the authorities, the grief for the dead are vividly audible here. Revolutionary songs, workers’ anthems, protest songs—this is the material from which Shostakovich crafts a powerfully evocative symphony—one that resonates just as strongly with its year of composition, 1957, with the Hungarian Uprising that had just been brutally suppressed, as it does with our own time. With this performance, Alain Altinoglu and the hr Symphony Orchestra continue their recording of all Shostakovich symphonies this season. Also physically demanding, energetic, and featuring a powerful percussion section, is "Alaraph," a work by Focus artist Unsuk Chin, being heard for the first time in Germany. The title comes from one of the so-called "heartbeat stars," whose pulsation resembles the heart rate in an electrocardiogram.

Shostakovich 11

It's a now iconic masterpiece: Aaron Copland's legendary Fanfare for the Common Man. This music promises pure goosebumps. Together with the ballet music to Billy the Kid, it embodies the sound of America – endless expanses, an unbroken spirit of adventure, a pathos that still resonates today. Erich Wolfgang Korngold's suite from The Sea Hawk offers real adventure. Hollywood was Korngold's new home, and film music his artistic salvation. With Korngold's lush orchestral sound as cinema for the ears, the epic soundtrack to The Sea Hawk promises pure drama. And Sibelius? He is considered the epitome of the Nordic sound. No composer has shaped Finland musically like he has. His Second Symphony is more than "just" music; it is also a story of protest, of hope, of the Finnish struggle for freedom. It is not for nothing that it bears the nickname "Symphony of Independence." A manifesto in music, powerful, courageous, timeless.

Film music & Sibelius | Jonathan Stockhammer

Dilijan XVII Concert 2 - Transfiguration

Lark Musical Society

Elgar’s Enigma Variations contain one of the most fascinating mysteries in British classical music. Consisting of a theme and 14 variations—some dark and searching, others playful and assertive—the orchestral work builds upon a wistful theme that was written as a countermelody to an unknown piece that Elgar never shared. A century later, no one has cracked the code to the secret tune. Roberto González-Monjas opens the program with another set of variations, this time by Korngold, overflowing with golden harmonies and a folkish warmth.

Composer

Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Events

Upcoming events

Apr 25, 2026 - Jun 12, 2027

Chamber Music · Wiener Staatsoper

Sep 26, 2026

MasterWorks I: Dvořák’s New World Symphony · Canton Symphony Orchestra

Oct 10, 2026

Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique · BBC Philharmonic

Oct 17, 2026

Shakespeare & Love · Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra

Oct 21, 2026

Braimah Kanneh-Mason and Sophia Rahman · Canterbury Festival

Past events

Sep 20, 2026

Quatuor Agate · Wigmore Hall

Aug 28, 2026

Pavel Haas Quartet · Edinburgh International Festival

About

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