Thomas Adès and the Vienna Philharmonic
It is always a remarkable experience to be able to watch conductors who are also engaged in composing music take the podium, as their approach to the pieces they perform involves a different kind of logic, as what they hear and what they are observing is different from what their colleagues who are not also creative artists hear and see. This is why it was so exciting to hear Pierre Boulez in concert and what makes any time Péter Eötvös steps up to the podium so invigorating. This is also why we are so eagerly awaiting the arrival of Thomas Adès, one of the leading composers of our time, for his joint concert with the Vienna Philharmonic.
And all the more so because Adès has included one of his own works in the programme: employing both a baritone and a mezzo-soprano along with the orchestra, Totentanz was written in memory of the great Polish composer Witold Lutosławski and his wife, Danuta. The work received rave reviews after its London world première in July 2013, with the critics heralding the new composition as a significant piece of music. What will be interesting about the concert at Müpa Budapest is not only the fact that the piece is going to be conducted by the composer himself: one of the two soloists, Christianne Stotijn, also sang at the world première. Since the concert will feature, along with this work by Adès, Benjamin Britten's 1940 Sinfonia da Requiem and Leoš Janáček's 1918 rhapsody Taras Bulba, based on a short story by Gogol, it would be fair to call the concert an invitation to an exciting adventure across the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Founded in 1842 and operating under a self-governing system without a chief conductor, the legendarily storied Vienna Philharmonic is one of the finest symphony orchestras in Europe and the world and has been conducted in each era of its existence by the leading maestros of the time, ranging from Wilhelm Furtwängler and Herbert von Karajan to Zubin Mehta and Christian Thielemann.
Featuring:
mezzo-soprano - Christianne Stotijn
baritone - Mark Stone
Presented by: Müpa Budapest
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