Johann Strauss (son) was a phenomenon in music history. A composer who combined, indeed merged, the entertainment character of the Viennese waltz with the seriousness of classical music in such a way that a very unique genre was created that was highly valued by all. What makes this special fascination can be examined again and again at the turn of the year, when hits such as "On the Beautiful Blue Danube" or the "Emperor Waltz" are not just used as background music for dance, but are enjoyed in the concert hall. But do you know "Copenhagen's Steam Railway Galop" by the Danish composer Hans Christian Lumbye? Or the young Ukrainian trombonist Polina Tarasenko, who plays works by Ferdinand David, Camille Saint-Saëns and Giacomo Puccini here? No? Then it's time before 2025 comes!

New Year's Eve concert

Stadthalle Göttingen

Einbeck New Year's Concert

PS Speicher

New Year's Concert

Bad Sooden-Allendorf

Ballhaus „Zum fidelen Anreischken“ Duderstadt

Bleckeder Brauhaus

Bürgerhaus Südheide

Concert Theatre Coesfeld

FORUM MELLE - vertreten durch die Solbad Melle GmbH

Gymnasium Alfeld

Gymnasium Uslar

Lessingtheater

Rathaussaal Bückeburg

Stadthalle Holzminden

Stadthalle Osterode am Harz

Theater an der Ilmenau

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

After the successful performance of the first Slam Symphony in 2024, the continuation of the unheard-of word-sound combinations now follows. The spoken word poets Tanasgol Sabbagh, Sulaiman Masomi and Dalibor Marković now negotiate the broad field of interpersonal relationships - it is about all forms of love.

Slam Symphony II LOVE

Deutsches Theater Göttingen

What actually happened to the girl? In the second movement of this late string quartet we hear Franz Schubert's own song "Death and the Girl". But towards the end of his short life he only allowed Death to speak here, not the girl. A death that, however, appears comforting: "Be of good courage! I am not wild," says the corresponding passage of the song that Schubert used as the basis for the music. The popular subtitle of the quartet only became established after his death, and if you ignore it for a moment, you see an example of what is probably the most important chamber music genre, which is downright enormous for another reason too: its immense length makes it one of the longest string quartets in music history, which is actually a small symphony.

Death and the Maiden

GDA Göttingen

The Old Town Hall Goettingen

Ten years in a penal camp north of the Arctic Circle. It's a miracle that the Russian composer Mikhail Nossyrev survived that and continued to work as a conductor from 1953 to 1981. "A Fairy Tale" was written while in captivity, and his impressive piano concerto, played here by Alexander Krichel, is one of his works that is better known outside of Russia. Then Christoph-Mathias Mueller, who is returning as a guest for the first time after his time as GSO chief conductor, crosses a national border that will hopefully remain uncontested for a long time to come: the Finnish composer Leevi Madetoja created his late-romantic second symphony during the First World War (and the Finnish Civil War). The role models Sibelius and Strauss are audible, but the work is an unmistakable sign that Madetoja found his own, convincing tone.

reunion

Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart have more in common than their biographies suggest at first glance. The melancholy Russian of the 19th century saw the easy-going Austrian of the 18th century as his most important role model, indeed as the most important musician of all time - and wrote some works in his style. For example, the fourth suite, which is based on several short compositions by Mozart. Sergey Malov, the Russian conductor and soloist of this support association concert, has a very rarely heard special feature in his repertoire alongside other Mozart and Tchaikovsky works: Curtain up for the extra-soft sounding violoncello da spalla, which is played on the shoulder - with a strap around the neck!

Mozartian

Aula am Wilhelmsplatz

Johannes Brahms schrieb seine Vierte in den Sommermonaten der Jahre 1884 und 1885 und sprach doch von einer „traurigen Symphonie, die nicht nach dem hiesigen Klima schmecke“ – ein Eindruck, den wohl mancher Hörer teilt, wir befinden uns eben im verschatteten Spätwerk. Und dennoch gilt diese letzte seiner Symphonien vielen als seine gewichtigste. Nicholas Milton lässt dazu passend Franz Schuberts melancholisch bis kräftige „Zauberharfe“ aus der Rosamunde-Musik erklingen und lädt in der Konzertmitte das Gauss-Quartett Göttingen ein, „The Rave and the Nighingale“ unseres Composers in Focus Matthew Hindson zu spielen, ein Stück, mit dem der australische Komponist darüber nachdenkt, welche Art Musik Schubert wohl geschrieben hätte, wenn er 200 Jahre später geboren worden wäre.

Rave and the Nightingale

guest performance Bückeburg

Schicksal, versöhnende letzte Worte und viel Pathos: Wenn das keine Hits sind! Giuseppe Verdis „Die Macht des Schicksals“ zählt seit jeher zum Opern-Repertoirekern und die Ouvertüre dazu zum Konzertklassiker. Johannes Brahms schrieb mit seinem letzten Orchesterwerk, dem Doppelkonzert, eine – tatsächlich so klingende – Versöhnung für seinen Jugendfreund Joseph Joachim. Violine und Violoncello, deren Verbindung der Komponist als „Riesengeige“ bezeichnete, spielen die Shootingstar-Geschwister Charlotte und Friedrich Thiele, Jahrgänge 2000 und 1996. Und auch Tschaikowskys vielleicht bekannteste Symphonie, die Sechste, war 1893 ein Schlussstrich, das letzte und so überwältigende Orchesterwerk des Russen. Die Leitung dieser Hits hat selbstverständlich Chefdirigent Nicholas Milton.

Pathétique

guest performance

Stadthalle Northeim

Peter, a clever boy, lives near a dark forest with his grandfather. Inside the forest lives a wolf, one of the evil kind. The wolf has his eyes set on the other animals, who happen to be Peter's friends. But Peter is truly a clever boy: he sets a clever trap for the wolf. With the musical fairy tale "Peter and the Wolf," Sergei Prokofiev composed a programmatic piece in 1936 that aimed to introduce children to the world of classical music. How well he succeeded is best judged by the adults among us who still remember the characteristic motifs of the oboe and flute from their music lessons. The outcome of the story can be anticipated: The main character, Peter, is represented by cheerful and adventurous violins.

Peter and the Wolf

Concert St. Jacobi

Evangelical Lutheran Church of St Jacob.

EPSG:4326

guest performance Amsterdam NL

The Concertgebouw

guest performance in Fürth

Stadttheater Fürth

Wenn sich zu Beginn von Bedřich Smetanas „Die Moldau“ die beiden Quellen des Flusses zusammenfinden und zum golden schimmernden Hauptthema hinleiten, meinen wir uns im Herz der tschechischen Musik zu befinden. So sehr sind diese Wellenklänge ins kollektive Ohrgedächtnis eingeflossen. Und in der heiter-beschwingten, mitunter gar walzertanzenden Achten, die noch vor seiner USA-Zeit entstand und also aus der „alten“ Welt stammt, eroberte sich auch Antonín Dvořák, der Landsmann Smetanas, zahlreiche Freiheiten von der europäischen Tradition. Im Zentrum des Konzerts steht eine Hausmusik von Matthew Hindson, unserem Composer in Focus, die gar nicht besonders bürgerlich, sondern ziemlich peppig daherkommt. Die junge Flötistin Meret Louisa Vogel übernimmt darin den virtuosen Solopart.

House Music

guest performance Uelzen

Who doesn't love this soft, sometimes radiant, sometimes dull, murmuring sound of the brass instruments? But you don't have to go to a church or to Wagner's "Parsifal" to enjoy it - neither of which would be a bad choice, of course. In this chamber concert, it can be experienced almost directly and without distracting ornamentation. Trumpet, horn, trombone. These are all the ingredients for a brass concert that promises to be a delight for the ears thanks to proven musicians and numerous exciting, rarely heard composers. Just one example: the piece "Crossing Barriers" by the French composer Jeff Scott, which actually overcomes obstacles by turning to the African circle dance near the equator.

Cross-border

Sergei Rachmaninoff's first piano concerto, which is often and somewhat unfairly overshadowed by the popular numbers two and three, is a magical work by the pianist and composer who is not even 20 years old. Fresh, energetic, romantic - and the revision almost three decades later provided the heavenly finishing touches. The Viennese conductor Katharina Müllner, who will begin her tenure as conductor at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in the 2024/25 season, is creating a program around this concert full of Italian dance fire (Rossini), Russian-Asian landscape painting including a desert caravan (Borodin) and Czech national pride: Dvořák's "My Home" is a theater overture that is not heard all that often, but is very finely crafted and simply fun.

Steppenskizze

Tango is like waltz: popular dance rhythms were transformed into works of art for concert stages with the help of brilliant composers. And what Johann Strauss achieved on the one hand can undoubtedly be said for Astor Piazzolla on the other: he helped tango - which also exists in the triple-time version known as "Vals" - to gain worldwide recognition. But even though milongas are now taking place everywhere, Argentina is and remains the heart of this style of music. This is also shown by the other composers represented in this concert, whose works were compiled by the Buenos Aires-born Italian conductor Pablo Boggiano - who is known to be an expert in these sounds. Pasión, passion: if it was ever to be found in music, then it is in tango...

Libertango

Sheddachhalle Göttingen

Die auf zahllosen großen Bühnen auftretende Sopranistin Annette Dasch mit Liedern von Richard Strauss – was für eine vielversprechende Kombination! Dreimal Hesse und einmal Eichendorff wählte der Bayer als Grundlage für sein letztes großes Werk; eher behutsam, aber tief bewegend besingen diese „Vier letzten Lieder“ den Kreislauf des Lebens. Zuvor begibt sich Andreas Schüller, Generalmusikdirektor des Stadttheaters Gießen, in märchenhafte Zauber- und Geisteswelten. Jean Sibelius schrieb zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts die bildhafte Musik zum symbolistischen Strindberg-Stück „Svanevit“ (Schwanenweiß); Richard Wagner ließ in seinem letzten Musikdrama das Orchester ein wahres Bühnenweihfestspiel erzaubern; und Arvo Pärts erst zehn Jahre alter, schwebend-choralartiger „Swansong“ nimmt Bezug auf den Theologen John Henry Newman.

Swan Song

If you go on holiday, think about what it was like 200 years ago. Horse-drawn carriage instead of car, I-see-something-you-don't-see instead of tablet. Felix and Fanny, the two extremely musical siblings who lived back then, go on a journey in this concert. From Leipzig they come to Switzerland and Italy, but they want to go further, to an island: to England and Scotland. And because they have both already thought up a lot of music, the notes come to them at each new stop. Of course you will get to know Mendelssohn hits like the Scottish Symphony and "A Midsummer Night's Dream", but also small details like one of the songs without words, which sounds so wonderful like a rattling carriage, or the Swiss song from the eleventh string symphony.

Felix and Fanny on the road

After Robert Schumann's Manfred Overture, which has already established itself as an independent orchestral work to such an extent that its literary basis (Lord Byron) has almost been forgotten, we hear a very current premiere. The young German composer Clemens K. Thomas says of his work: "'Girls und Panzer' is not a piece about war, but about its consumability in Central Europe." It is about "politics as a balancing act full of compromises and contradictions." This is followed by Composer in Focus Matthew Hindson with "Maralinga", which also has political references: that was the name of a British nuclear test site in Australia in the 1950s. And finally, Arthur Honegger provides a conciliatory conclusion with his fourth symphony "Basler Freuden", which was written shortly after the end of the Second World War.

Girls und Panzer

From Beethoven to Debussy. From trio to quartet. From the end of the 18th to the end of the 19th century. Ludwig van Beethoven was still a young man in his mid-twenties when he wrote three string trios with the opus number 9. And he was expressly convinced of the quality of his work. The third example of this collection is indeed absolutely captivating, dark and full of passion. What it does to the sound when a second violin is added to the violin can be wonderfully studied in Claude Debussy's only string quartet, which was written 100 years later. But one thing remains astonishing: that the impressionist tone painter managed to remain true to his style with just four instruments, even in this small, intimate form.

Zauberhaft

Altes Rathaus Göttingen

We listen, dance and let ourselves drift when musicians from the GSO meet DJ, composer and producer Leon Weber. In the intoxication of sounds, classical and club music, chamber music and electronics mix. With his unusual club sound, the Munich-based multi-instrumentalist has built up a global fan base under the pseudonym LCAW, toured all over the world and generated over 150 million streams to date. In addition to his DJ career, he also repeatedly draws on his musical roots as a classically trained cellist and pianist for special projects: He fuses classical compositions with his own sound world, takes on scores by Beethoven, Ravel or Reich, deconstructs them and builds bridges between classical works and experimental electronic music.

Pastorale Electro

musa e.V.

guest performance in Salzgitter

Gymnasium Salzgitter-Bad

"Brilliant! Excellent!", Londoners would say. "A real promenade concert!" Because this will sound familiar to them from the Royal Albert Hall: marches and other hits by their national saints Elgar and Vaughan Williams, along with some phenomenal classical melodies such as Rossini's Tell Overture, Grieg's Bergkönig Hall and Offenbach's Hoffmann Barcarole. For film fans, Hollywood legend John Williams is on board the excursion steamer for sophisticated entertainment music. And chief conductor Nicholas Milton brings the great fun for the ears to a fitting finale with Elgar's first Pomp and Circumstance March - whose "Land of Hope and Glory" is loved almost more by Londoners than the actual British national anthem...

Proms

guest performance Duderstadt

guest performance Weilburg

Renaissancehof Weilburg

guest performance Weilburg II

It makes sense, if not from time to time absolutely necessary, to fill a concert evening exclusively with music by Ludwig van Beethoven. It begins with his first overture, followed by his Rondo for piano and orchestra, which was written even earlier. The already mature composer wrote his Choral Fantasy as a kind of "little ninth symphony" in which he experimented with the combination of choir and orchestra - if you like, look for the melody parallels to the great work that has been peacemaking for two centuries during the performance of the Göttingen City Choir... The concert, conducted by the Estonian conductor Risto Joost, ends with one of Beethoven's best-known works, the rather beautiful and natural "Pastoral" symphony.

Göttinger Symphonieorchester

Dec 31, 2024 - Jan 1, 2025

New Year's Eve concert

Jan 3, 2025

Einbeck New Year's Concert

4 - 19 Jan, 2025

New Year's Concert

23 - 24 Jan, 2025

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Jan 26, 2025

Slam Symphony II LOVE

Göttinger Symphonieorchester