Concert introduction at 19:00 in the Great Hall
The birds that introduce themselves this evening grow progressively larger, more colorful, more powerful. First the hen - Joseph Haydn's 83rd Symphony earned that sobriquet through many a staccato, clucking oboe passage in the opening movement. Then comes the appearance of the organ, the peacock among instruments: it fans out colours in unexpected variety when it is used as skilfully as in Francis Poulenc's Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani. Poulenc saw himself with this lustily whirling work "on the way to the monastery, very much in the manner of the 15th century", but there was no trace of monastic austerity. All the more of fantasy, humour and grandiose sound effects - the Latvian star organist and "Artist in Residence" Iveta Apkalna is allowed to push forward to fourfold fortissimo. Then for the finale: The Firebird, the dazzling mythical creature to which Igor Stravinsky dedicated his so powerful, ecstatic, richly coloured ballet music, set for a "lavishly large orchestra", as the composer confessed.
Text source and more information about this event: https://www.alteoper.de/de/programm/veranstaltung.php?id=521193612
