»Freude, schöner Götterfunken«: With his famous Ninth Symphony, Ludwig van Beethoven created a musical monument that not only shaped the history of music, but whose famous finale also found its way into the national anthem of the European Union. Iván Fischer conducts his Budapest Festival Orchestra, which he founded in 1983 and has long shaped, in this masterpiece that is as overwhelming as it is moving. In the finale, the Pan-European Chorus and a quartet of top-class soloists join in, including the Swedish soprano Maria Bengtsson and the bass-baritone Hanno Müller-Brachmann – one of the most distinguished German singers of his generation.
When Beethoven completed his Ninth Symphony in 1812, he broke the boundaries of the genre: for the first time, he integrated a chorus into the form and set Friedrich Schiller’s famous »Ode to Joy« to music in the final movement. From the initial drama of the first movements, a music of ever-increasing radiance grows step by step, until, in the fourth and final movement, voices and orchestra unite in a powerful and timeless declaration of humanity, hope and community.
PERFORMERS
Budapest Festival Orchestra orchestra
The Pan-European Chorus choir
Maria Bengtsson soprano
Olivia Vermeulen alto
Andrew Staples tenor
Hanno Müller-Brachmann bass
Iván Fischer conductor
PROGRAM
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125
