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.

Night concert - Up and down, wide night

Pannonhalma Archabbey

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.

Csilla Csővári

Events

Past events

Aug 23, 2025

Night concert - Up and down, wide night · Chamber Orchestra of Europe

Aug 22, 2025

Opening concert - Sacred garden, abundant foliage · Chamber Orchestra of Europe

Future and recently performed repertoire

Vocals in Piano Sextet by Mendelssohn

Chamber Orchestra of Europe

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