The SWR Symphonieorchester presents an exhilarating series of concerts this January, blending timeless symphonies with cultural festivities. The highlight is the maestro Jonathan Nott conducting works by Szymanowski, Zemlinsky, and Tchaikovsky, paired with the enchanting piano of Francesco Piemontesi. This orchestral journey spans notable venues and celebrates the 100-year legacy of Pierre Boulez, alongside spirited concerts featuring the beloved works of Brahms and Strauss. Join us as we dive into this rich tapestry of symphonic experiences and cultural reflections.

SWR Symphonieorchester: A Celebration of Symphonic Masterpieces and Cultural Heritage

The SWR Symphonieorchester, led by the esteemed conductor Jonathan Nott, presents an engaging series of concerts in January 2025. From the powerful symphonies of Szymanowski and Tchaikovsky to the lively pieces of Brahms and Strauss, these events promise to captivate audiences. Highlights include the captivating 'Polyphony X' by Pierre Boulez, with insightful narration from Oscar Jockel. Suitable for all ages, the series also features school and family concerts, making classical music accessible and enjoyable for everyone.

Jonathan Nott and SWR Symphony Orchestra: A Harmonious Journey through Classic Compositions

Throughout February 2025, the SWR Symphonieorchester will captivate audiences with a series of spellbinding concerts. Featuring diverse performances from renowned musicians and conductors, the events span multiple venues across Germany. Attendees will experience the genius of contemporary composers like Johannes Maria Staud, Shostakovich, and Alberto Posadas, among others. With performances ranging from percussion solos to intricate orchestral pieces, this month-long celebration of music promises memorable experiences for lovers of modern and classical compositions alike.

A Symphony of Innovation: Celebrating Contemporary Music with the SWR Symphonieorchester

February promises to be a month of musical splendor as the SWR Symphonieorchester presents an eclectic lineup of concerts. From groundbreaking contemporary compositions to tributes to historic musical movements, audiences are in for an experience that celebrates both innovation and tradition. With performances ranging from the ECLAT Festival Neue Musik to a tribute to Clytus Gottwald’s transformative a cappella arrangements, each event is set to captivate and inspire. Featuring renowned conductors and virtuoso performers, this series of concerts is a testament to the enduring and evolving power of orchestral music.

SWR Symphonieorchester's February Showcase: A Celebration of Innovation and Tradition

March 2025 is a month to remember for music enthusiasts as the SWR Symphonieorchester orchestrates a diverse blend of concerts, from the avant-garde ensemble SPARK to classical and contemporary chamber music, and a riveting rendition of Anton Bruckner's F minor Mass conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado. Each event offers a unique blend of musical prowess, highlighting the talents of renowned performers and introducing audiences to an eclectic mix of compositions that cross genres and generations.

A Symphony of Styles: Exploring SWR Symphonieorchester's March Concert Series

With this format, the SWR Symphony Orchestra is opening up a safe space for people with physical and mental disabilities, in which they can experience new listening spaces in a relaxed atmosphere, tailored to their needs. In preparation for the concerts, local workshops will be offered, at the beginning of February 2025 in Freiburg in cooperation with the Department of Instrumental and Vocal Pedagogy at the Freiburg University of Music (registration to follow) and on March 29, 2025 in cooperation with the educational department vhs inclusive of the Stuttgart Adult Education Center (registration at katrin.wahner@vhs-stuttgart.de ).

Inclusive Concert: I Got Rhythm

Kultur- & Kongresszentrum Liederhalle

Line 2: Radio Music

E-WERK Freiburg e.V.

Classical and jazz specialists from the SWR Symphony Orchestra use their selection of music with personal commentary to present the mutual relationship between the two genres of classical and jazz. Jazz standards such as "Autumn Leaves", "Take the A-Train" or "I Got Rhythm" meet works by Maurice Ravel or Wolfgang Rihm. The students learn first-hand from the musicians how, for example, harmony and rhythm change in jazz, which sound effects are possible on the instruments and how they are used, how and why jazz saxophonist and solo bassoonist of the SWR Symphony Orchestra Libor Sima reinterprets the jazz standards and whether improvisation really works without a plan. With its moderated live performance, the concert offers a perfect complement to the Abitur topic and as an introduction to the subject of jazz. For interested classes and courses, we offer a discussion session with the artists after the concert in the form of speed dating.

School Concert: Fit for the Abitur

Freiburg Concert Hall

„... 100 in Frankreich und 90 in Persien, aber in Spanien schon tausendunddrei ...“. Don Giovannis Register der vernaschten Damen mag beeindruckend klingen – verglichen mit Giacomo Casanova war er ein Anfänger. Und im Gegensatz zu Don Juan liebte Casanova die Frauen wirklich. Aber in seinem aufregenden Leben war er viel mehr als nur Libertin und Liebhaber ohne festen Wohnsitz, nämlich (unter anderem) Paradeoffizier und Orchestergeiger, Kardinalssekretär und Lotterieunternehmer, Kabbalist und Verschwörer, politischer Gesandter und Knastbruder, Dichter, Schriftsteller, Liebling der Salons und verfemter Hasardeur. Die Spur seiner Lebensgeschichte führt quer durch Europa, von Venedig nach Petersburg nach Paris, von Barcelona nach Florenz nach Ludwigsburg nach London. Und vor dieser Landkarte entrollen seine Memoiren ein hochspannend erzähltes, monumentales Panorama des vorrevolutionären 18. Jahrhunderts, denn Casanova kannte sie alle: Maria Theresia und Friedrich den Großen, Madame Pompadour und ihren Ludwig, Päpste und Kardinäle, Dichter wie da Ponte und Philosophen wie Rousseau und Hochstapler wie Cagliostro. Und immer spielt irgendwo eine Musik dazu! Katharina Eickhoff „vertont“ Casanovas Lebensgeschichte – und verfällt ihrem atemlosen Charme.

EPSG:4326

Zum 300. Geburtstag von Giacomo Casanova "Auch die schönste Frau ist an den Füßen zu Ende"

Familienkonzert: Kids Studio

SWR Studio Freiburg

Klassik- und Jazzspezialisten des SWR Symphonieorchesters stellen in ihrer Musikauswahl mit persönlichen Kommentaren die wechselseitige Beziehung der beiden Genres Klassik und Jazz dar. Jazz-Standards wie "Autumn Leaves", "Take the A-Train" oder "I Got Rhythm" treffen auf Werke von Maurice Ravel oder Wolfgang Rihm. Aus erster Hand erfahren die Schüler:innen von den Musikern, wie sich z. B. Harmonik und Rhythmik im Jazz wandeln, welche Klangeffekte auf den Instrumenten möglich sind und wie sie eingesetzt werden, wie und warum Jazz-Saxophonist und Solo-Fagottist des SWR Symphonieorchesters Libor Sima die Jazz-Standards neu interpretiert und ob Improvisieren wirklich komplett ohne Plan funktioniert.Das Konzert bietet durch seine moderierte Live-Performance eine perfekte Ergänzung zum Abiturthema und zum Einstieg in das Themenfeld Jazz. Für interessierte Klassen und Kurse bieten wir nach dem Konzert eine Gesprächsrunde mit den Künstlern in Form eines Speeddatings an.

Schulkonzert: Fit fürs Abi

Mit diesem Format eröffnet das SWR Symphonieorchester einen sicheren Raum für Menschen mit körperlich-geistiger Einschränkung, in dem sie ganz nach ihren Bedürfnissen in entspannter Atmosphäre neue Hörräume erleben können. Zur Vorbereitung auf die Konzerte werden lokale Workshops angeboten, Anfang Februar 2025 in Freiburg in Kooperation mit dem Fachbereich Instrumental- und Gesangspädagogik der Hochschule für Musik Freiburg (Ausschreibung zur Anmeldung folgt) sowie am 29. März 2025 in Kooperation mit dem Bildungsbereich vhs inklusiv der Volkshochschule Stuttgart (Anmeldung unter katrin.wahner@vhs-stuttgart.de).

Inklusives Konzert: I Got Rhythm

Pablo Heras-Casado dirigiert Anton Bruckners f-Moll-Messe

Mannheimer Rosengarten

When Anton Bruckner wrote his F minor Mass, he had had difficult months behind him. In the spring of 1867, he said, personal and professional setbacks had driven him to the brink of madness. The Linz Cathedral organist suffered a nervous breakdown from which he had to recover in a sanatorium. When he was able to return to work in August of the same year, he composed as if in a frenzy. Delighted by his regained creative power, he achieved a brilliant feat: a Mass of symphonic proportions and shocking expressiveness that was to go down in music history as his "great one." For the SWR Vokalensemble, the performance of this last setting of Bruckner's Mass is a reunion with the conductor Pablo Heras-Casado, the WDR Cologne Radio Choir and the SWR Symphony Orchestra this season.

Pablo Heras-Casado conducts Anton Bruckner's F minor Mass

The young man in Wilhelm Müller's cycle of poems "The Beautiful Miller's Daughter" is deeply in love, but the story, which begins with butterflies in his stomach, takes an unfortunate turn and ends badly. The poet Wilhelm Müller, however, meant the lyrics to be ironic; we should laugh at the poor miller's boy, his infatuation, jealousy and despair. But then Franz Schubert came along and turned them into music that is so precise, touching and true that you cannot escape it and emotionally experience the whole emotional drama of the unhappily in love man. Schubert's song cycle "The Beautiful Miller's Daughter" is a masterpiece in the interplay of word and music - and the main topic in the written school leaving exam. Experiencing the song cycle as a whole in concert is impressive. And Torsten Müller, bassist in the SWR Vokalensemble and a passionate song interpreter, has worked out an interpretation with his piano partner Andrea Amann that cannot be heard on any recording. But "Fit for the Abitur" offers even more: At the beginning of the concert there is a detailed introduction to the work. In Freiburg this is done by Eva Pobeschin, music editor of SWR Kultur. In Stuttgart there is a staged concert introduction with contributions from prospective high school graduates from the Eberhard-Ludwigs-Gymnasium.

Fit for the Abitur

Chamber Concert: Works by Glazunov, Lang, Žuraj, Fries and Reich

Museum Frieder Burda

The young man in Wilhelm Müller's cycle of poems "The Beautiful Miller's Daughter" is deeply in love, but the story, which begins with butterflies in his stomach, takes an unfortunate turn and ends badly. The poet Wilhelm Müller had intended the lyrics to be ironic, so that one should laugh at the poor miller's boy, his infatuation, jealousy and despair. But then Franz Schubert came along and made music out of it that is so precise, touching and true that one cannot escape it and emotionally experiences the whole emotional drama of the unhappily in love man. Schubert's song cycle "The Beautiful Miller's Daughter" is a masterpiece in the interplay of word and music - and the main topic in the written school leaving exam. Experiencing the song cycle as a whole in concert is impressive. And Torsten Müller, bassist in the SWR Vokalensemble and a passionate song interpreter, has worked with his piano partner Andrea Amann on an interpretation that cannot be heard on any recording. But "Fit for the Abitur" offers even more: At the beginning of the concert there is a detailed introduction to the work. In Freiburg this is done by Eva Pobeschin, music editor of SWR Kultur. In Stuttgart there is a staged concert introduction with contributions from prospective high school graduates from the Eberhard-Ludwigs-Gymnasium.

Hospitalhof Stuttgart

The resident ensemble SPARK will be enriching Asparagus Saturday with a few hits from its wide repertoire. These include baroque masterpieces by Johann Sebastian Bach and Isabella Leonarda, as well as a racy tango by the American composer Lev "Ljova" Zhurbin and film music by the British minimal music maestro Michael Nyman. The ensemble surprises with a crazy instrumental line-up that combines the classical piano trio with around 30 different recorders and a melodica. The five group members pitch their tent of ideas in an open field between classical, minimal music and avant-garde and have been letting sparks fly with this exciting mix of styles for 18 years now. In 2011, it won the ECHO Klassik. Since then, SPARK has not only delighted a steadily growing audience in German-speaking countries, but has also performed as a solo group in front of the London Symphony Orchestra at sold-out Barbican Centres, in the National Concert Hall Taipei and in the Vienna Musikverein.

SPARK · Spring Special

Open-Air Stage

Giuseppe Mengoli conducts works by Tchaikovsky, Scriabin and Franck

Best Western Plus Palatin Kongress Hotel

This recital is a tribute to Clytus Gottwald. He arranged the music of the fin de siècle, piano songs and instrumental works, even entire symphony movements, and transformed them into sonorous works for a cappella choir. None of these composers would have dreamed of writing a cappella. Only Richard Strauss began to experiment with vocal music in 1888, at the height of his orchestral works. However, he soon gave up these attempts when he noticed that they were not being well received by choirs. Gottwald wanted to pick up this broken thread of vocal music and combined Richard Strauss's instrumental treatment of voices with a vocal technique that he had learned about in 1968 from György Ligeti's "Lux aeterna". "Delicacies" by Ravel, Berg and Mahler were the beginning, and today it has become a whole genre, with more than 100 transcriptions.

Fin de Siècle

Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ

Lunchtime concert: Giuseppe Mengoli conducts Scriabin and Tchaikovsky

veranstaltung

Pierre Boulez Saal

St. Michael's

Evangelische Stadtpfarrkirche Gaisburg

Ingo Metzmacher conducts works by Shostakovich, Ligeti and Hartmann

Patricia Kopatchinskaja plays Shostakovich, Ligeti and Hartmann

Emilio Pomàrico conducts works by Staud and Posadas

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

ECLAT Festival Neue Musik Stuttgart

Theaterhaus Stuttgart

Family Concert: Kids Studio

Kirill Karabits conducts works by Mozart, Saint-Saëns, Walton and Tchaikovsky

Lunchtime concert: Kirill Karabits conducts Saint-Saëns and Tchaikovsky

Family Concert: Of Sounds and Stories

Old Castle

Family Concert: Johann & Johannes

Baden-Baden

To kick off the Boulez year, the still young concert series "Line 2" in the Wizemann in Stuttgart will be featuring a very special "concert workshop" for the first time: Conductor Oscar Jockel will also act as moderator and will begin by explaining the work "Polyphony X" by Pierre Boulez, which is the focus of the evening, with individual sound examples performed by the SWR Symphony Orchestra. With its orchestral design and serial structure, "Polyphony X" for 18 instruments occupies a special place in the composer's oeuvre; in a way, it links the young master with the later composing grand seigneur. Premiered in Donaueschingen in 1951, the three-movement piece caused a real scandal at the time, so that Boulez initially withdrew it, even though it also represented his breakthrough as a composer. Stravinsky, who later heard "Polyphony X", was very impressed and was reminded of the scandal surrounding his "Sacre du Printemps" of 1913.

Line 2: 100 Years of Pierre Boulez

Im Wizemann

School Concert: Johann & Johannes

Reithalle im Kulturforum

To kick off the Boulez year, the concert series "Line 2" in Freiburg's E-Werk will be featuring a very special "concert workshop" for the first time: Conductor Oscar Jockel will also act as moderator and will begin by explaining the work "Polyphony X" by Pierre Boulez, which is the focus of the evening, with individual sound examples performed by the SWR Symphony Orchestra. With its orchestral design and serial structure, "Polyphony X" for 18 instruments occupies a special place in the composer's oeuvre; in a way, it links the young master with the later composing grand seigneur. Premiered in Donaueschingen in 1951, the three-movement piece caused a real scandal at the time, so that Boulez initially withdrew it, even though it also represented his breakthrough as a composer. Stravinsky, who later heard "Polyphony X", was very impressed and was reminded of the scandal surrounding his "Sacre du Printemps" of 1913.

All waltzes... The concert title includes lively and well-known works by Johannes Brahms and Johann Strauss (Son), such as a selection of the "Hungarian Dances", the overture to the operetta "Die Fledermaus" or the waltz "Wiener Blut". The two artists met in Baden-Baden, one of the cultural metropolises of the 19th century, and also arranged to meet privately.

Senior Concert: All Waltz?!

The concert title conceals lively and well-known works by Johannes Brahms and Johann Strauss (Son), such as a selection of the "Hungarian Dances", the overture to the operetta "Die Fledermaus" or the waltz "Wiener Blut". The two artists met in Baden-Baden, one of the cultural metropolises of the 19th century, and also arranged to meet privately.

Seniors Concert: All Waltz?!

Jonathan Nott conducts works by Szymanowski, Zemlinsky and Tchaikovsky

Musikhalle Ludwigsburg

Jonathan Nott conducts Szymanowski, Zemlinsky and Tchaikovsky

New Year's Eve concert of the SWR Symphony Orchestra

Christoph Eschenbach conducts Elgar and Brahms

During the Schwetzingen Festival, SWR Kultur is presenting excerpts from the audio book Tell Me What I Am by Una Mannion. A young woman disappears without a trace. Her husband claims that she has disappeared. But her sister tells a different story. It is about a charismatic seducer and a toxic love that kills what it cannot possess.

audio book on the festival motto

SWR Symphonieorchester

Music theatre in a prologue and three acts by Mike Svoboda (music) and Anne-May Krüger (libretto) based on Peter Hacks' comedy of the same name

Adam und Eva

Schlosstheater Schwetzingen

On selected days, the festival is “With the star at the bar” in the Schwetzinger Kurfürstenstube and talks to him about music. Reservations can be made by phone: 06202 / 933020

SPARK

Kurfürstenstube 

The GrauSchumacher Piano Duo.

Blote-Vogel-Schule Stockumer

Everything for eternity! In order to come across as a fossil as possible, the Roman snail strikes a pose: "My house is only a fetish for me, the main thing is that I look aesthetically pleasing!" This is what the most famous work by composer Camille Saint-Saëns sounds like, after Roger Willemsen took it on and added very human (and quite contemporary) rhymes to the animal music - right down to the aquarium in which the fishermen's choirs live. Together with violinist Franziska Hölscher and pianist Marianna Shirinyan, actress Katja Riemann sees the Carnival of Animals as a bow to the audience - and as a carnival of happiness, a celebration of life. The test follows immediately: with Willemsen's version of the biblical story of Job ( The Tired Happiness ), which is also set in an animal setting, namely in a circus tent. "It's about everything," says Katja Riemann, "because we're asking how we want to live." The solution to all problems can be found here in working together. Musically too: with music by Mozart, Schnittke, Elgar, Prokofiev and Stravinsky.

Karneval des Glücks

Schwetzingen Palace

Seduction

Small cause - big effect: In paradise, an apple was enough to plunge humanity into misfortune until Judgement Day. In 1972, the East German writer Peter Hacks surprised his audiences in both East and West Germany when he turned the biblical story of the fall of the first human couple into a comedy. It was his eye for the absurdities of existence, trained in everyday life in the GDR, that enabled him to reveal the humor in the story of the fall in linguistic virtuosity. At the same time, with his comedy Adam and Eve, he created a sharp-tongued plea for a concept of freedom that eludes all moral categories. Did Adam and Eve act rightly or wrongly? It doesn't matter - they acted. Mike Svoboda, composer and trombonist, American in Switzerland and a musical crossover between new music, jazz, performance and subtle humor, has so far concentrated as an opera composer on works for young and very young audiences. So trained in the combination of sophistication and lightness, Svoboda is predestined to set Hacks' paradisiacal comedy to music and demonstrate its topicality. Anne-May Krüger wrote the libretto for his music theater Adam and Eve. The composer himself conducts the hr Symphony Orchestra.

Adam and Eve

Rococo Theater

Two symphonies that are nicknamed "great" - Mozart's 40th in G minor and Schubert's eighth in C major - plus a large orchestral work by the composer who has been nicknamed the "female Beethoven". All that's missing is a large orchestra. But that's not the case here. Instead, four great musicians play arrangements of great music. So we'll hear: Schubert in what Schumann calls the "heavenly length" of just under an hour, "like a thick novel in four volumes by Jean Paul, for example, which can never end." Plus Mozart's penultimate symphony, a piece of which there are probably as many different interpretations as there are exegetes. And finally: Faust! When we talk about seduction, Goethe's hero as a central figure in literary history cannot be left out, and so we also hear an arrangement of the Faust Overture , which Emilie Mayer wrote in 1879 and which was one of the few works by the highly talented composer to be published during her lifetime.

Raphaela Gromes · Daniel Dodds · Duo Tal & Groethuysen

Symphonic Miniatures

In the family concert, SPARK brings together three completely different B's: Johann Sebastian Bach as the forefather of classical art music, Luciano Berio as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century and the Beatles as titans of pop music. On the journey through these three different sound worlds there is something new to discover - such as the crazy playing techniques that Luciano Berio came up with for the instruments. And familiar and well-known things can be experienced in a new way with SPARK when they whirl across the stage in their version of Bach's famous Badinerie or add their own motifs and melodies to a prelude by Bach's contemporary Christoph Graupner. The five musicians move between eras and genres with great virtuosity and a lot of joy in playing. In doing so, they constantly open up new sounds and scenery for themselves and their audience, expand, explain, contrast and create a lively dialogue between baroque and modern. SPARK unashamedly and naturally draws on all genres, breaks unnecessary boundaries and celebrates one thing above all with passionate devotion: good music, namely Bach – Berio – Beatles .

Bach - Berio - Beatles

Hunting Hall

Young authors from the music journalism course at the Karlsruhe University of Music let themselves be seduced by the special atmosphere of Schwetzingen Palace and the park and use their impressions to create inspiring audio pieces about the festival - sometimes humorous, sometimes informative, full of music and the musical history of this special place.

music features for the castle park

When SPARK invites you to a concert, there is a lot to see and hear. First of all, there are lots of instruments: piano, violin, viola, cello, melodica, plus around 20 recorders in different sizes and types of wood. There are also pieces from different eras, from the Baroque to the present day. Even sounds that are several centuries old still get your feet moving today. But the musicians also play a catchy Hungarian folk tune or a pop song by ABBA, one of their absolute favorite bands. And they demonstrate new playing techniques of modern avant-garde music on their instruments, without you having to develop any new music escape reflexes. Important questions are also answered: for example, how exactly a note is created on a string instrument or how to play a "flutter tongue" on the recorder. And of course the musicians also talk about their everyday working life on stages around the world - from London, Amsterdam and Berlin to Shanghai.

SPARK for Teens

You wish - we play! In the past, this was often seen on television and radio, but today what you wish for is played live. The only condition: it has to be one of the 600 or so songs by Schubert, because on this evening, tenor Julian Prégardien, together with Anna Gebhardt on the piano, will delve deep into Schubert's unique cosmos of poem settings. On every ticket purchased for this concert there is an email address to which you can send your desired song - preferably with a short explanation of why you want it to be this particular song. Was it perhaps a support for the first kiss, was it sung in the family, was it a catalyst for joy, an instrument of hope, nourishment for the soul in times of suffering? Prégardien, who will not only sing but also host this evening, will make a selection from the most frequently mentioned songs and add his own favorites to these.

request songs

Typical characteristics of popular music are the ability to sing along, dance and be recognisable. In this sense, the English composer John Dowland was already writing pop songs in the 16th century: Come again, sweet Love for example, Flow my Tears or Come, heavy Sleep – the beauty and emotionality of these songs still overwhelm us today. So what could be better than dreaming your way into the night with Ayres and instrumental music by John Dowland and his contemporaries Thomas Morley, Orlando Gibbons and John Bull? The three musicians of the Vienna Vivid Consort are both singers and recorder players, alternating between singing and instruments, and for this programme with Ayres from the height of the English Renaissance they have teamed up with the lutenist David Bergmüller. The spectrum ranges from quiet, intimate solo works to songs and complex, full-voiced consort movements. And in keeping with the English word “vivid” in the trio’s title, the evening becomes a lively journey into the richness of sound and expression of the Elizabethan era.

Vivid Consort & David Bergmüller

Hall Schwetzingen Castle

A dancer moves his body, his muscles. Why do we find that beautiful? How do grace, elegance and sensuality arise in movement, and how consciously and emotionally does a dancer have to dance so that his performance can be touching? In 1810, Heinrich von Kleist wrote a famous essay on marionette theatre, and the star soloist of the Stuttgart Ballet, together with the artist and choreographer Thomas Lempertz, used this text as the basis for the solo performance The Soul on a String . Kleist puts forward the thesis that true grace is only possible with a puppet, because there is no mind controlling the movements. Friedemann Vogel counters this with movements with consciousness and inner emotion, but is accompanied and questioned by a dancer avatar. With The Soul on a String, a unique work of art made up of dance, music and video is coming to Schwetzingen, which has only been seen in two places so far. The audience there was deeply moved.

The Soul on a Thread

Eight singers, a conductor, choral settings for the great biblical hymn about love, the Song of Songs, plus songs about flowers: the a cappella program of the British Marian Consort offers stimulation for all the senses and pure seduction. In addition, you experience music history in fast forward, starting with music of the late Renaissance, lingering longer with Benjamin Britten's Five Flower Songs , which are composed in the style of Edward Elgar, Charles Parry and Charles Villiers Stanford, and ending with two commissioned works. One of them, composed by the British Laura Cannell, dares to combine folk, old and experimental new music. This suits an ensemble that has earned itself the reputation of a vocal pioneering group in program compilation and presentation. Rory McCleery conducts the program, the intense sound of which should unfold optimally in the wide space of the Trinity Church in Speyer.

The language of flowers

Trinity Church Große Himmelsgasse

Dancing is liberating. When the body moves and the heart beats faster, the head becomes free and the mind calm. Igor Stravinsky's great ballet Le Sacre du Printemps in 1913 was a liberating blow for rhythm, sound and harmony - a scandal for the audience at the premiere in Paris. Maurice Ravel's symphonic poem La Valse was also commissioned by the Ballets Russes and their director Sergei Diaghilev in 1920, but was then rejected: the piece had become too dark, too destructive. Schubert freed himself from the shackles of the traditional sonata form with his F minor Fantasy in 1828; the main theme of the first movement, which returns in the last, is reminiscent of a Hungarian dance with its dotted rhythm. Now the celebrated young piano duo of the brothers Lucas and Arthur Jussen invites you to a liberating dance on 88 keys (in Schubert's version) and 176 keys - and complements the brotherly togetherness with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's virtuoso four-hand Andante and Allegro brilliant op. 92. A celebration of rhythm and freedom.

Lucas & Arthur Jussen

Bas Wiegers conducts works by LutosŁawski, Saariaho and Debussy

Three recorder players want to take their lives into their own hands. In the middle of their concert preparations, they set off and land via a magic mirror in a fairytale parallel universe. Everything is turned upside down there and a mysterious mission awaits them. With courage, curiosity and passion, they set about carrying it out: they have to save the fairytale land, the world of fantasy, dreams and art! They receive support from all kinds of fabulous creatures - and from music. Will the three be successful and find their way back to our world and to their planned concert?

rebel fairy tale

Vegetarians can breathe a sigh of relief: The Casal Quartet is not playing an arrangement of Camille Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals on this special evening . Otherwise, the three-course encounter of music and cuisine would have included turtle soup, kangaroo steak, chicken fricassee, fish fillets and perhaps pianist's sorbet for dessert. With works by Mozart, Grieg, Gershwin and Piazzolla, the four musicians from Switzerland are now giving the chefs the greatest possible freedom in the kitchen during the breaks. The sound menu is complemented by a little-known string quartet by the Bohemian Austrian Adalbert Gyrowetz. The long-time Vienna Court Theater conductor was a composer of the transition between classical and early romanticism. For the listeners' palates, this means that the plates will be playful and extremely colorful. If the Casal Quartet plays as one would expect from them, namely with delicacy and plenty of taste, then there is only one thing left to say: It's served!

Casal Quartet

Before the night music "The Books of the Times", the festival is with Mike Svoboda at the bar of the Schwetzinger Kurfürstenstube and talks to him about music.

The Books of the Times · Mike Svoboda

Kurfürstenstube

When he was barely 18, Friedrich Hölderlin wrote the monumental poem The Books of the Ages . Based on the books of the biblical story of revelation, Hölderlin tells in three parts of the "atrocities of the earthly race", redemption through Christ, the achievements of humanity and the just reward for this. Mike Svoboda entrusts the proclamation of this apocalyptic vision to three female voices, thereby drawing a connection to mythological figures such as the three Norns. The three singers spin the text into inextricable sound structures and allow words from the biblical imagery to emerge. Man, we hear, can become equal to God through the greatness of his deeds. When Svoboda focuses on the tonal interpretation of the text, he expands the vocal trio to a quartet with the trombone and emphasizes the archaic nature of the poem in his sound language. This character is also reflected in several of the drummer’s sounds, which he uses as much dry birch branches as water and gravel.

The Books of the Times

Schlossgarten Schwetzingen

The monthly puzzle with Katharina Eickhoff has been an integral part of the SWR Kultur music hour for years. The presenter will be a live guest again at the Schwetzingen SWR Festival and invites you to guess along.

The Riddle with Katharina Eickhoff

When the English music scholar Charles Burney walked through Schwetzingen in 1772, he found the place "entirely inhabited by a colony of musicians". Schwetzingen was and is indeed a place of music. This is what the event In the Paradise of Musicians aims to convey again this year: a tour through Schwetzingen's city center leads to the places where the court musicians of Elector Carl Theodor lived and worked. Students from the State University of Music and Performing Arts in Mannheim invite you to a short concert in the concert hall of the Palais Hirsch afterwards. 250 years ago, on August 13, 1775, the opera Alceste by Anton Schweitzer and Christoph Martin Wieland was the first German-language opera to be performed in the Schwetzingen Palace Theater. Elector Carl Theodor was particularly concerned with promoting the German language and its emancipation in science and culture. The court musicians of the Electorate of the Palatinate also began to set German texts to music. The short concert's program includes songs and arias by Anton Schweitzer, Ignaz Holzbauer, Georg Joseph Vogler and Johann Friedrich Hugo von Dalberg. The paradisiacal afternoon ends with a glass of sparkling wine on Schwetzingen's castle square.

In the Paradise of Music Artists

Palais Hirsch Schlossplatz

Young and old. For the orchestra academies in Schwetzingen, the SWR Symphony Orchestra looks for special conductors for special repertoire. In this case, the special conductor is Matthew Halls: a young British specialist in early music who has also made a career as a harpsichordist. The orchestra approaches the special repertoire in reverse gear. Schwetzingen's resident artist Raphaela Gromes is the soloist in Joseph Haydn's second cello concerto - a virtuoso challenge, because the composer dedicated his work in 1783 to Antonín Kraft, who was considered the world's best cellist at the time. Since Haydn copied the "singing allegro" from Mozart, the combination with his 33rd symphony is a good fit. Then Jean-Philippe Rameau's Pigmalion ballet suite lets us participate in the creation of art: Already in the overture we hear the hammer of the sculptor Pygmalion, who then falls hopelessly in love with his own statue. It is quite possible that something similar will happen to the audience while listening to Rameau's seductive sounds...

Orchestra Academy

Schwetzinger SWR Festival: Orchestra Academy

Following the concert of the SWR Symphony Orchestra with Matthew Halls and resident artist Raphaela Gromes, the festival will be with the artists at the bar of the Schwetzinger Kurfürstenstube and will talk to them about music.

Orchestra Academy · Matthew Halls & Raphaela Gromes

Let it be on the lute? Beatles songs as quiet string magic? Why not - at least that's what the musician who is considered the "Eric Clapton of the lute" thinks. Thomas Dunford, son of a French gambist and an American violinist, chose the lute as his instrument at the tender age of nine, but is by no means satisfied with their conventional repertoire. In his very special night music, Dunford combines Beatles with Dowland, Imagine with Come again and the King of Denmark's Galliard - and crowns the encounter of old and new with his own pieces. Blind Man is one of them, That's so you another (by which he may be referring to his wife, the French-Italian mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre), We are the ocean a third. We experience Dunford not only as a quietly plucking instrumentalist, but also as a singer. This could be an early summer night's dream.

Thomas Dunford

Following the night music "Imagine..." the festival will be with Thomas Dunford at the bar of the Schwetzinger Kurfürstenstube and will talk to him about music.

The trio Johannes Brahms - Robert Schumann - Clara Schumann has inspired each other artistically and, in some parts, erotically since 1853. But this concert is not just about the question of who, why and whether at all. Rather, the alliance of three expands into a pentagonal story. Mendelssohn is added, whom Brahms greatly admired. And the composer Aribert Reimann, who died in 2024 and who felt a close connection with Schumann, also joins for a short time. Schumann's first and Brahms' third string quartets form the framework for a program rich in relationships, the intertwined paths of which are lined with excerpts from Peter Härtling's Schumann novel and letters from the Schumann couple, read by the actress Martina Gedeck. The Schumann Quartet is responsible for the music, although it is not named that because of Robert or Clara, but because of the three brothers Erik, Ken and Mark who play along. The violist is an external player, but that is another (square) story.

Martina Gedeck & Schumann Quartett

Family Concert: Klangfarben

Every sound has a unique quality: a so-called timbre. It gives the music its specific character and allows us to distinguish not only between instruments and voices, but also between musical styles and performers. Markus Tillier, Fionn Bockmühl, Wolfgang Düthorn and Alexander Richtberg are cellists in the SWR Symphony Orchestra, and together with the orchestra's music educator, Jasmin Bachmann, they take their young audience on a journey of discovery through the world of timbres. They mix different musical eras in a colorful way and definitely invite you to join in!

Klangfarben

An unaccompanied folk song, I will give my love an apple , simple singing. A sonata for violin, viola da gamba and bass. Folk songs, ballads, songs by Henry Purcell, lute songs and solo improvisations for theorbo, plus virtuoso string music. All of this can be experienced on this very British and very baroque evening, which the lutenist Andreas Arend has conceived for and with Clare Wilkinson, Veronika Skuplik and Hille Perl. Ballads within a Dream is the title of the concert, which pays homage to the rich tradition of the "fairest isle". You can experience a musical homage to elves and nymphs with tender sounds full of longing for love, shy magic and a touch of high spirits: music that could have come from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream . Perhaps you will be as enchanted at the end as Titania in this play: “Sing once more!” sighs the enchanted fairy queen, “my ear is completely in love with your melody!”

Nymphs, Lilies and an Apple

Bas Wiegers conducts works by Lutosławski, Sariaaho and Debussy

Cologne Philharmonie

Daycare concert: What does ... sound like?

Venus or Elisabeth? Eroticism or love of God? Poor knight Tannhäuser simply cannot decide, and although everyone shouts "Hallelujah!" at the end of Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser , the hero finds no peace. His only option is death. The folk poetry on which Wagner's opera is based has one of the most torn heroes in literary history, and the two seductive poles between which he moves form the framework of this concert with arrangements for two pianos. Yaara Tal and Andreas Groethuysen begin with a lot of Bach. Mozart's C minor Fantasy KV 475 and Sonata facile (which, by the way, is not at all easy to play) create an ideal transition to Wagner's famous Bacchanale because they are heavenly and earthly; and to one of the most beautiful deaths in music history. In his arrangement of Isolde's Liebestod, Max Reger dispenses with all opulence - and thus gives the heroine's farewell to life, love and sensuality a touch of comforting peace of mind.

Piano duo Tal & Groethuysen

Historical instruments, gut strings and old bows are not everything. For the British Consone Quartet, founded in 2015 at the Royal College of Music in London, the name says it all: the Latin word "consone" means unison. Harmony is the goal, even for the rarity of the evening, Emilie Mayer's G major quartet. How the harmony will sound when Kristian Bezuidenhout stirs it up on the fortepiano will be shown in Mozart arrangements. First you can hear the C major piano concerto in pocket format, then the quintet KV 452, which was actually composed for piano and wind instruments. Mozart himself considered this piece "the best thing I have ever written in my life." Violins, viola and cello will implement the then new wind instrument sounds with their means - up to the Larghetto, in which Mozart echoes the register aria from his later Don Giovanni . Compared to the conquest of the many women on the womanizer's list, success with the Schwetzingen audience should be easy.

Kristian Bezuidenhout & Consone Quartet

It grooves, rattles, swings and hisses. Musicians explore hidden worlds of sound. They discover music to which plants and animals also contribute. Playing with and against each other, they explore human characteristics. And from there they reach the strange world of machines and artificial intelligence (AI). What do people do there? And what does the sound installation "Robopercussion" want at the interface of art and research? Together with the audience, the ensemble feels its way through a fascinating world of rousing rhythms and surprising melodies in the field of tension between nature, man and machine. Strong emotions, automated processes, electronic extensions and the joy of playing combine in this concert to create a cosmos of its own: sound!

Sound!

“Minne” is not just love. The medieval term encompasses much more. It describes different types of human affection as well as the relationship between man and God, and there is probably no one who wrote as many Minnelieder in the latter sense as the Benedictine abbess, mystic, poet, musician, scientist and saint Hildegard of Bingen in the 12th century. The Per-Sonat ensemble, a special troupe for music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, founded and directed by mezzo-soprano Sabine Lutzenberger in 2008, brings together songs by Hildegard with works by the minnesinger Heinrich von Meißen (known as “Frauenlob”), who lived at the turn of the 14th century and was considered the king of the minnesingers, in Speyer Cathedral. The focus of the evening will be Marian songs and musical settings of the biblical Song of Songs, accompanied by fiddle, lutes and bagpipes

Minne and Maria

Crypt

Lunchtime concert: Michel Mariotti conducts works by Brahms and Dvořák

"Love! Love! Let me go!" pleaded a man in 1775 who is today considered the most important German poet. The poem in which Johann Wolfgang von Goethe describes a "sweet, loose girl" who held him "against her will" is entitled New Love, New Life , and its lines are by no means mere fantasy, but an expression of his own inner life. Torn between longing for love and the inability to commit to a permanent relationship, Goethe fell in love with numerous women, desired them, then left them again, was inflamed by new ones and wrote countless words on paper about them and his feelings. But who were the women he lost his heart to? Could Goethe actually love anyone other than himself? Were women perhaps just surfaces for him to project himself into? The tenor Julian Prégardien came across a painting in a museum that made a deep impression on him: blind spot by Margit Jäschke. The picture shows three women in long, colorful dresses gathered in front of a keyboard instrument. Their upper bodies and especially their faces are covered by a patchy white spot. Who were Goethe's women? How did they view their relationship with him, and what arts did they practice in the shadow of the great poet? The blind spot is a two-part evening with songs and poems by Franz Schubert, Fanny Hensel, Louise Reichardt and Bettina von Arnim, among others. In the first part we hear musical settings of verses in which the young poet deals with his three love affairs in Weimar. In the second part the women around Goethe, especially the artists, are given a stage. The actress Julia Nachtmann is here, and we are amazed to learn that not everything was as Goethe dreamed it would be. Or as he made it up. The German poet laureate was already a master of what we today call mansplaining. What a discovery!

Julian Prégardien & Kristian Bezuidenhout

Place of longing – role model – victim: the relationship between humans and nature is complex. Per Nørgård uses texts by Rainer Maria Rilke to search for a connection to nature in sound. Christian Mason composes according to the principles of swarm intelligence, observes the social strategies of fish and birds for living and surviving and asks: is adaptation the best survival strategy for us humans too? The willows in Johannes Maria Staud's choral work can tell you a thing or two about this, as they were witnesses to the death marches that passed by them. And the Korean composer Younghi Pagh-Paan's existential choral work tells of the earth that means home. It is about rural exodus, exploitation and the radical restructuring of Korean society to the point of "loss of the soul".

Gastkonzert: Natur und Mensch

Alte Oper

Chamber Concert: Works by Say, Françaix and Dvořák

Do you love Wagner? · Mike Svoboda

Following "The blind spot I: Goethe and the women", the festival will be with the artists at the bar of the Schwetzinger Kurfürstenstube and will talk to them about music.

After his opera "Adam and Eve", resident artist Mike Svoboda is a guest at the festival with another amusing program.

Do you love Wagner?

Following the night music "Do you love Wagner?" the festival will be with the Mike Svoboda Quartet at the bar of the Schwetzinger Kurfürstenstube and will talk to them about music.

Lieben Sie Wagner?

Long before Mozart's divertimenti and serenade music, wind players loved to play music in the fresh air, and if the weather plays along, this will also be the case at the walking concert of the oboe band La Petite Ècurie. And with good reason - after all, the concert is in the Schwetzingen Palace Gardens, where Verschaffelt's sculptures of the river gods of the Rhine and Moselle by the lake widen the view towards the neighboring European countries. These are the focus of the program Oboes on a European Tour, which presents music of the High Baroque in several national styles. The present-day countries of France, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Italy and Austria are the stops on a walk that playfully circles around the most fascinating contradictions of Baroque music: only the basso continuo as a fixed rule enables the greatest possible melodic freedom; as a unifying and binding idea, it also makes individual national styles possible. And who invented it? The Florentines!

Oboen auf Europareise

Schwetzingen Palace Garden

La Petite Écurie

Love, music, improvisational talent and your wishes - these are the ingredients of this concert. And this is how it works: You tell us your favourite love song (in advance by email or simply by calling it out during the concert), and four young musicians bring your wishes to the stage with passion and imagination - the soprano Clara Barbier Serrano and the pianist Joanna Kacperek, who have just won second prize at the International Song Competition, fulfill song requests in the original and with text. The brothers Lionel and Demian Martin improvise on top with cello and piano, transforming the happiness of love, sex appeal and heartbreak into tangos, fugues or waltzes and letting the melodies wander through different eras and styles - sometimes with voluptuous pathos, sometimes breathtakingly virtuosic, rocky or baroque. A high of musical endorphins for couples, singles, new or long-term lovers!

Lionel & Demian Martin, Clara Barbier Serrano, Joanna Kacperek

Chamber Music Hall

love song request concert

„Liebe! Liebe! Lass mich los!“, fleht 1775 ein Mann, der heute als bedeutendster deutscher Dichter gilt. Das Gedicht, in dem Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ein „liebes, loses Mädchen“ beschreibt, das ihn „so wider Willen“ festhalte, trägt den Titel Neue Liebe, neues Leben, und seine Zeilen sind keineswegs bloße Fantasie, sondern Ausdruck des eigenen Inneren. Hin- und hergeworfen zwischen Liebessehnen und der Unfähigkeit, sich dauerhaft zu binden, hat sich Goethe in zahlreiche Frauen verliebt, hat sie begehrt, dann wieder verlassen, ist für neue entflammt und hat über sie und seine Gefühle unzählige Worte auf Papier geschrieben. Wer aber waren die Frauen, an die er sein Herz verlor? Konnte Goethe überhaupt jemanden anderes lieben als sich selbst, waren Frauen für ihn womöglich reine Projektionsflächen? Der Tenor Julian Prégardien ist im Museum einem Gemälde begegnet, das ihn tief beeindruckte: blind spot von Margit Jäschke. Das Bild zeigt drei Frauen in langen, farbigen Kleidern, die sich vor einem Tasteninstrument versammelt haben. Ihre Oberkörper und vor allem ihre Gesichter verdeckt ein flickenartiger weißer Fleck. Wer waren Goethes Frauen? Wie haben sie die Beziehung zu ihm gesehen, und welche Künste haben sie im Schatten des großen Dichters ausgeübt? The blind spot ist ein zweiteiliger Abend mit Liedern und Gedichten u. a. von Franz Schubert, Fanny Hensel, Louise Reichardt und Bettina von Arnim. Im ersten Teil hören wir Vertonungen von Versen, in denen der junge Dichter seine drei Liebesbeziehungen in Weimar verarbeitet. Im zweiten Teil bekommen die Frauen um Goethe, speziell die Künstlerinnen, eine Bühne. Die Schauspielerin Julia Nachtmann ist hier dabei, und wir erfahren staunend, dass beileibe nicht alles so war, wie Goethe es sich erträumte. Oder herbeidichtete. Schon der deutsche Dichterfürst hat virtuos das beherrscht, was wir heute Mansplaining nennen. Was für eine Entdeckung!.

Julian Prégardien, Kristian Bezuidenhout & Julia Nachtmann

Guest Concert: Nature and Man

Her real name is Alisa Scetinina. She initially wanted to be a dancer and therefore studied ballet in Munich. After five years at the Munich and Stuttgart State Operas, she began studying at the Stuttgart Academy of Arts and devoted herself to music on the side. In addition to the violin and guitar, she discovered her passion for music production, especially on analogue devices. Today, the Latvian-born artist offers acoustic adventures beyond all categories and genres under the stage name Gaisma. Gaisma's art worlds move between choreography and improvisation: wild, virtuosic, immersive, rousing. Together with DJ Henrique, who alternates with her, Gaisma brings club and classical music together this evening in a way that is sure to get under your skin and into your legs.

Gaisma & DJ Henrique

BASEMENT - The Club

It is a story about friendship and the power of making music: In the land of oboes and bassoons, everything is fine. People play, laugh, argue and make up again. But suddenly a thundering storm breaks out: everything freezes and becomes quiet. Then someone comes along who sounds completely different, completely strange and new. Can this newcomer break the rigidity and create a new harmony? And can the message he brings with him in a secret language be deciphered?

sound explorer

An era before the dawn of civilization, a world in harmony: that is the Golden Age , which ancient mythology uses to describe the peaceful, original state of humanity. Later, the term was used to describe many cultural heydays. In English music, it coincides with the reign of Elizabeth I in the second half of the 17th century. The Golden Age program by Russian soprano Julia Lezhneva goes beyond this framework, supplementing English ayres from the Renaissance with baroque arias from France and Italy, among other places. The 18th century was also quite golden. Lezhneva's voice itself is also golden: the New York Times described it as "angelic," and the artistry of the singer, who has a particular love of baroque music, is praised everywhere. She sings even the most absurd coloraturas with striking naturalness. And she always has her most important motto with her. "The voice," says Julia Lezhneva, "is the sound of the soul."

Julia Lezhneva & Luca Pianca

Museum Pfalzgalerie Lautre

Palacio Nuevo de Stuttgart

Quiet inside, loud outside. String instruments inside, wind instruments outside, especially those that were particularly en vogue in the Baroque era: oboes. The French-Italian ensemble La Petite Écurie (three Baroque oboes, bassoon and percussion instruments), founded in 2018, and its repertoire are in the great tradition of outdoor sound festivities that were fashionable in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially at French and English courts. The name of the troupe refers to the large stable in Versailles, where not only horses were ridden, but music was also made (often both at the same time). But this evening's program has little to do with volume. La Petite Écurie span a wide range of emotions and sounds; they dream of love with Henry Purcell's Fairy Queen , give their hearts away to the sounds of Bach's St. Matthew Passion - and finally cry the most beautiful tears of sound in music history with Handel's Rinaldo . Short electronic recordings and texts connect the pieces of music and tell of the different faces of love.

La Petite Écurie & Miriam Feuersinger

Yiran Zhao, born in China and based in Berlin, is a composer, performer, audio designer and sound artist. The use of light and shadow is as much a part of her vocabulary as performative elements and visual media. The Briton Christian Mason uses a text by Paul Griffiths on the (light-related) schooling behavior of fish for his new work "The Oddity Effect". Both works, as well as the premiere of a prize-winning piece from the ACHT BRÜCKEN composition competition, will be conducted by Ustina Dubitsky, who attracted attention through her successful participation in the Besançon conducting competition and winning the "La Maestra" conducting competition.

Gastkonzert: The Oddity Effect

Some talents burn out early: they are celebrated as long as great art is paired with early youth, after which they are forgotten. This does not apply to the three composers of this evening - with one exception: Clara Schumann was celebrated as a virtuoso during her lifetime, but she did not receive lasting recognition for her compositions until the 20th century. One critic even rejected the review of her 1837 piano concerto "because we are dealing with the work of a lady". Schumann took Mendelssohn's first trio of 1839 as an opportunity to praise his fellow composer as the "Mozart of the 19th century". Clara Schumann wrote her only piano trio in 1845 at the age of 25 - a year before her husband Robert composed his first trio, which was heavily influenced by her work. Lera Auerbach, born in Siberia in 1973 and now living in New York, writes music using what initially seem like traditional means and forms. Her powerful first trio from 1992 gives no indication that we are dealing with the work of a woman.

Raphaela Gromes · Eldbjørg Hemsing · Alexei Volodin

A kiss is: an expression of deep tenderness, muscle work, the exchange of bacteria, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation - and in Iowa it is forbidden if it lasts longer than five minutes. Kisses are ritualized and regulated; they can be a sign of love, subservience, betrayal or even death. Soprano Dorothee Mields and pianist Christine Schornsheim have put together a program of songs and arias full of lip encounters composed by Johann Sebastian Bach and his son Carl Philipp Emanuel. Even the tangent piano used here fits the theme: its sound is created by the interaction of two sticks - one presses, the other dampens. If that isn't a kiss! Here is another appetizer from the song Bevelise and Lysidor by probably the most famous Bach son, the text is by Ewald Christian Kleist: "The man who after the honeymoon / kisses out of love and not out of duty, / ... / who, when her autumn is already approaching, / kisses her as if it were her spring, / is a phoenix that enchants; / it's just a pity that he is rare."

SWR Symphonieorchester

May 2, 2025

audio book on the festival motto

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Adam und Eva

May 3, 2025

SPARK

May 3, 2025

The GrauSchumacher Piano Duo.

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Karneval des Glücks

Apr 4, 2025

Inclusive Concert: I Got Rhythm

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Line 2: Radio Music

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SWR Symphonieorchester