Symphoniekonzert VI

Two major cyclical projects with Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Berlin will continue: the complete performances of Richard Strauss’s orchestral songs and Franz Liszt’s symphonic poems. The selection includes songs for tenor and soprano, among them the “Three Hymns for High Voice and Large Orchestra” based on texts by Friedrich Hölderlin, which Strauss set to music in the early 1920s with a keen sense of cantabile and rich timbre.

Liszt’s most famous symphonic poem, Les Préludes, draws its inspiration from a poem by the French author Alphonse de Lamartine, which poses the fundamental question: “What is our life but a series of preludes to that unknown song whose first and solemn note is struck by death?” Equally opulent in sound yet nuanced are the Festklänge, a piece intended as wedding music that served as the overture to a Schiller play at its premiere in Weimar in 1854—a lesser-known composition by Liszt in which his growing mastery of orchestration becomes evident.

Franz Liszt

Festklänge (Symphonic poem No. 7)

Richard Strauss

Orchesterlieder

Franz Liszt

Les Préludes (Symphonic poem No. 3)

Artists/Collaborators: (Komponist/in), (Autor/in)

Next date:

• Date Tuesday, 13/April/2027 19:00 (1 more date)
• Venue Staatsoper Unter den Linden
• Address Unter den Linden 7, 10117 Berlin-Mitte