A 25-year-old romantic idealist who, with unbridled self-assurance, made both the sensual pleasures of life and transcendence after death tangible in music: that was Richard Strauss. With his tone poems Don Juan and Death and Transfiguration, he stirred up the music world around 1890. His late-romantic sound paintings caused both enthusiasm and consternation among audiences. A quarter of a century later, Franz Kafka wrote his groundbreaking novel The Trial. Ivan Danko’s composition Process musically captures the bizarrely oppressive atmosphere there. The deliberately Kafkaesque choice of solo instruments by our Composer in Focus, namely oboe, Wagner tuba and harpsichord, contributes to this. Following the successful Prague premiere in 2024 on the 100th anniversary of Kafka’s death, Danko’s Process will be performed for the first time in Germany in Stuttgart. Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue KV 546 is the link between Strauss’ and Danko’s metaphysical questions in this program.

EPSG:4326

2. Symphony Concert

Beethoven Hall (Beethovensaal)

What moved Dmitri Shostakovich deeply at the end of his life was expressed musically in his last work. Although he found it more than difficult to write, he put his Viola Sonata op. 147 down on paper - a work in which he looks back on his often painful life full of melancholy. Our Composer in Focus this season is Ivan Danko. His composition Frustration of the Tolerance is inspired by the painting of the same name by Slovakian artist Albin Brunovský and moves between expressive drama, quiet fragility and a hint of folkloristic motifs – an exploration of inner turmoil and the attempt at balance. In his Piano quintet No. 1, Antonín Dvořák does not yet appear as the Czech national composer he has become known as. This music is highly romantic, full of opulent harmonies and rapturous gestures.

Ivan Danko

Events

Upcoming events

Mar 11, 2026

5. Chamber Music Concert · Staatsorchester Stuttgart

Past events

23 - 24 Nov, 2025

2. Symphony Concert · Staatsorchester Stuttgart

About

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