Humans have always been fascinated by the moon, and this mystical, pale celestial body has inspired artists of all genres. The mysterious moon and the moonstruck Pierrot are the main characters in "Mondestrunken": Alongside Arnold Schoenberg's "Pierrot Lunaire," a prologue and three interludes conjure the moonlit night—with music, scenes, texts, songs, and poems ranging from the poetically contemplative to the cheerfully frivolous. These include the poem "Mondesaufgang" (Moonrise) by the writer and composer Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Robert Schumann's ethereally beautiful "Mondnacht" (Mond Night), and Johann Abraham Peter Schulz's famous musical setting of "Der Mond ist aufgegangen" (The Moon Has Risen).

Moon-drunk

Lehmbruck Museum

Pavel Haas is one of a whole series of artists who, to this day, painfully remind us of the gaps the Nazis left with their campaign of extermination against Jewish life and culture. At the age of 14, Haas began his musical education at the Brno Music School and later studied for two years at Leoš Janáček's Conservatory. He worked as a music teacher and freelance composer before being deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in December 1941. There, in order to perfidiously maintain the appearance of normality, the Nazis started a "leisure activities" program that also included music. Viktor Ullmann, Hans Krása and Pavel Haas were among the composers who continued to compose in the midst of the unimaginable. As a contribution against forgetting, the memorial concert commemorates the unimaginable suffering of so many people.

Memories of Pavel Haas

At the Duisburg Philharmonic's winter concert, candles and string sounds compete for glory - this time in a particularly festive musical setting, when works by Italian baroque composers and contemporary colleagues from the north are performed. The dance sequence from Henry Purcell's stage spectacle "The Fairy-Queen" is already very varied. And while it is not only the spherical "Air" that enchants in Bach's 3rd orchestral suite, selected concerti grossi by Antonio Vivaldi, Arcangelo Corelli and Pietro Locatelli testify to the inventiveness and melodic seductive power of these masters.

Baroque Concert in the Light

Theater Duisburg

“Rejoice, be glad”: With his “Christmas Oratorio”, Johann Sebastian Bach created his great Christmas classic for the church. The festive music also comes into its own in the Duisburg Opera Foyer, where highlights from it can be heard. In addition, the Capella Fluviale, the baroque ensemble of the Duisburg Philharmonic, and their guest singers will present a program from the time period of the great Thomaskantor, from Heinrich Schütz's “Small Sacred Concerts” to atmospheric works by Georg Friedrich Händel, Jean-Marie Leclair, Gaetano Maria Schiassi, Dieterich Buxtehude, Gregor Joseph Werner and Michel Corrette. Speaking of classics: traditional Christmas carols are of course not to be missed at this meeting of song and word.

Christmas in Song and Word

The quintet by Amy Marcy Beach, an important figure in American late Romanticism, begins in a romantic, luxuriant manner with lush melodies. She owes her fighting spirit to the fact that she even got this far. In the gloomy, puritanical life on the east coast of the USA, the highly gifted girl with perfect pitch had to learn to compose autodidactically. Mozart, another highly gifted young man, had it easier, and his quintet, in the then unusual all-string ensemble, is surrounded by a dark aura. Schubert's Opus 44, his first chamber music work with piano, then concludes the concert with explosive power, rich melodies and dazzling timbres.

Quintets

The horror is unimaginable: On October 7, 2023, the radical Islamic Hamas attacked Israel. In the south of the country, its members carried out a massacre, torturing and kidnapping defenseless civilians. As a result of the barbaric terrorist attack, a war broke out in the Gaza Strip, bringing immeasurable suffering to people on both sides. In memory of the day of the terrible attack, the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra is organizing a concert with Jewish music and Jewish artists - as a sign of solidarity and as a signal of hope. Because music can achieve what often seems unattainable in real life: people of different backgrounds and religions find each other in the intimate dialogue of chamber music, united in their devotion to a common cause: music.

Memorial concert

Philharmonie Mercatorhalle

Not only Christmas carols but also numerous major and minor works of classical music will create a musical atmosphere for the most wonderful holiday of the year. In their series "Christmas in Song and Word," the Duisburg Philharmonic will perform original works and arrangements from the works of great composers this year, including the enchanting Flute Quartet in D major, K. 285, which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completed fittingly for the occasion on Christmas Day 1777. While alto Ingeborg Danz takes on the vocal part, narrator Bernt Hahn complements the program with Christmas stories and poems by literary classics such as Hermann Hesse, Joseph von Eichendorff, and Theodor Storm.

Christmas in song and word

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was his composition teacher; in addition to a symphony and a piano concerto, he himself wrote a variety of songs, chamber music, and piano works. Yet today, hardly anyone knows Georgi Catoire. To mark the 100th anniversary of his death on May 21, the program opens with his melancholic Piano Quintet in G minor, in which, despite all its originality, echoes of Johannes Brahms can also be heard. Brahms himself is also represented, with his symphonic-like Quintet in F minor. Interspersed with this piece is one of George Onslow's 34 string quintets: Harmonic richness and cantabile melodies characterize the work, in which the composer also achieves a special richness of sound through the instrumentation of cello and double bass.

Quintet discovery

Where streams of tourists now flock, artistic activity reigned for centuries. Outstanding composers such as Giovanni Gabrieli and Francesco Usper, as church musicians around 1600, used the galleries of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice to experiment with the new concept of polyphony. Musical successors such as Baldassare Galuppi and Antonio Lotti, also major figures in Venetian music history, were often no less experimental. In the serenade concert of the Duisburg Philharmonic and their guest Frithjof Smith, their works enter into dialogue with those of lesser-known, yet all the more worthy masters—naturally, in historically informed performance practice.

2nd Serenade Concert

Hamborn Abbey

As children, the Mendelssohn siblings were inseparable: they took lessons together, made music together, and shared composing tips. While her brother Felix had every opportunity, Fanny had to fight against the conventions of her time, which were not particularly friendly towards women composers. Fortunately, she did not let this deter her and, alongside her family obligations, always cultivated her musical talent and composed diligently. These include songs such as "Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh" (There is peace above all summits) based on a text by Goethe and the Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 11. With works like these, as well as excerpts from correspondence and statements by contemporaries, the program paints a fascinating portrait of Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn, playing period instruments.

Anja Schröder

Events

Upcoming events

14 - 21 Dec, 2025

Christmas in song and word · Duisburger Philharmoniker

Mar 12, 2026

Quintet discovery · Duisburger Philharmoniker

Jun 5, 2026

2nd Serenade Concert · Duisburger Philharmoniker

Jun 18, 2026

The happy fisherwoman · Duisburger Philharmoniker

Past events

Oct 2, 2025

Moon-drunk · Duisburger Philharmoniker

Apr 3, 2025

Memories of Pavel Haas · Duisburger Philharmoniker

Future and recently performed repertoire

Cello in String Quintet No. 26 by Onslow

Duisburger Philharmoniker

Cello in Piano Quintet by Catoire

Duisburger Philharmoniker

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