Classical music is rarely experienced in such a relaxed, informal setting. The lunch concerts of the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra make it possible: On a flying visit to Hamburg? A bit of time during your lunch break? Looking for an idea for a group outing? Every one or two months, you can simply drop by the Brahms Foyer of the Laeiszhalle on a Tuesday afternoon. You don't even need a ticket for these chamber music delicacies. Entry is free, but places are limited (and the seats even more limited!). There is just a donation box at the exit - for anyone who enjoyed it.

violin and cello

Laeiszhalle Hamburg

Francis Poulenc, the real joker of the Groupe des Six, created a precious treasure of five works for the woodwinds - the sextet, a trio and a sonata each for flute, clarinet and bassoon. With the sparkling Sextuor for piano and winds, a showcase for the "musical prose" sought by the Six, he thrusts us into the heart of the pulsating life of his hometown of Paris. The three-movement piece was completed in 1932, but was thoroughly revised in 1939 for the performance with Poulenc himself at the piano. At the beginning it sounds like the Grands Boulevards, everything is noisy, running, honking, shouting and whirling around, and immediately the woodwinds are allowed to bring their entire arsenal of modern acrobatics into play. The middle movement is more idyllic, before the fast section suddenly seems to be a fairground bustle. The work concludes with a hymnic declaration of love to the Seine metropolis.

sextet, octet and nonet

Completely removed from the sophisticated hustle and bustle of the spa town of Baden-Baden, nestled in a modest home in the suburb of Lichtental close to the forest as he always did in summer, Johannes Brahms came up with the theme for the first movement of the Horn Trio on one of his beloved morning walks in the forest: a gentle circle first around the note F, then ever more circling in its melody. Later he would even lead a friend to the place where the sound of nature had caught him inside. The instruments that Brahms had learned as a child in Hamburg included the piano and cello as well as the French horn. It is no coincidence that Brahms continued to feature the horn very prominently in his music later on – it is not difficult to find corresponding passages in the symphonies in particular; but the early songs for women's choir, two horns and harp op. 17 should also be mentioned. It was his mother who loved Johannes' horn playing in particular. The question of the extent to which the death of the mother Christiane, who died in February 1865, actually influenced the composition of the Adagio movement for the horn trio a few months later keeps cropping up with strange persistence. However, it seems presumptuous to continue to rack one's brains here in Brahms' name. Mesto (sad) is written in the score, and that is how the movement sounds. And the whole trio is "an incomparable work of this chamber music genre, [that] floats in musical heaven," says György Ligeti.

Theresia Rosendorfer

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