16:00 Philharmonie Berlin

Karina Canellakis & Augustin Hadelich

Ludwig van Beethoven

"The Creatures of Prometheus" - Overture from the ballet music op. 43

György Ligeti

Concerto for violin and orchestra

Witold Lutosławski

Concerto for orchestra

Karina Canellakis

Conductor

Augustin Hadelich

Violin

Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin

Positive Renitence

Apparently out-of-tune instruments, ocarina-playing percussionists and natural tone rows of horns against the “normal” orchestra. Ligeti’s Violin Concerto (1990) is a fascinating sound experiment that dares to break out of Europe’s standardised, “well-tempered” tonal system by allying itself with natural tone rows. Ligeti shows us what we have to do without in view of the twelve evenly distributed semitones of the octave.
“There must be no indifferent sounds in music.” What the Polish composer Lutosławski took for granted also suits Ligeti. The Concerto for Orchestra not only refers to Béla Bartók in its name. In 1954, it convincingly united all the neo-classical currents of the early 20th century in a work that was as original as it was kaleidoscopic. It almost goes without saying that Beethoven’s titanic “Prometheus”, which is not at all pleasing to God, joins the ranks of those personalities who strive to lead people to and beyond their limits in the best sense of the word.

Concert introduction: 3.10 p.m., South Foyer, concert introduction by Steffen Georgie