Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester / Ingo Metzmacher

• Classical Music

»You sometimes need to go against the grain a bit in the music business,« says conductor Ingo Metzmacher. So it’s no wonder that the revolutionaries Arnold Schönberg and Dimitri Shostakovich are on the evening’s programme with the highly talented Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester.
Arnold Schönberg’s »5 Orchestral Pieces« defy the familiar schemes and formulas of his time with all their might. Schönberg himself describes the pieces as »absolutely not symphonic, exactly the opposite; no architecture, no structure. Just a colourful, uninterrupted alternation of colours, rhythms and moods«. This makes them the perfect challenge for the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, which regularly reforges its line-up from the best young European musicians, and can’t wait to show its mettle with fresh energy.

In the second half of the concert, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony tells of injustice and violence against the defenceless – officially in reference to riots in Russia in 1905 – in music that is impressively visual in style. However, Shostakovich leaves open the question of whether the feelings of despair and sadness, defiance and hope that he sets to music are universally valid by quoting timeless protest songs.

PERFORMERS

Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester orchestra

Ingo Metzmacher conductor

PROGRAM

Ludwig van Beethoven
Coriolan Overture, Op. 62

Arnold Schönberg
Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16

Ludwig van Beethoven
Leonore Overture No. 3, Op. 72a

- Interval -

Dmitri Schostakowitsch
Symphony No. 8 in C minor, Op. 65