Name: Suffering and life paths
Start: 2024-09-12T19:30:00
Location: Philharmonie Mercatorhalle

Axel Kober

Lena Neudauer

Duisburger Philharmoniker

The first Philharmonic Concert draws attention to two beginnings and one end of three great composers. For example, the young Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, who at the age of 20 made his first great journey to England and Scotland. He visited the mythical Fingal's Cave in the Hebrides by steamship - and was terribly seasick from the stormy crossing. Nevertheless, the sea cave, battered by waves, made such a big impression on him that he immediately wrote down a few bars of music: it was the beginning of the tone-painting "Hebrides" Overture. Robert Schumann, on the other hand, was at the end of his life when he composed his Violin Concerto. He was dead only a short time later, having died in a mental hospital near Bonn. It was precisely the proximity to this tragic and sad end that had a long-lasting effect on the work - its creator was accused of lacking mental strength. The first Urtext edition with the correct musical text was not published until 2009. And the German violinist Lena Neudauer, who has studied Schumann's violin works intensively, will play it in her Duisburg debut. Another beginning is Brahms' 1st Symphony, which he struggled with for almost 15 years because the "giant Beethoven" had cast such a heavy shadow over him. In the finale he even quotes his role model's 9th Symphony, only to finally free himself from it in the triumphant conclusion.