Sun, Oct. 24, 2021, 11.00 am | Elbphilharmonie, Grand Hall
Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 75 in D-minor Hob. I:75
Joseph Haydn: Cantata “Miseri noi, misera patria” Hob. XXIVa:7
Joseph Haydn: “Misera, chi m'aiuta” from “La vera costanza” Hob. XXVIII:8
Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 102 in B-flat-major Hob. I:102
Conductor: Andreas Spering
Soprano: Layla Claire
Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg
Andreas Spering is one of the leading European early music specialists and well sought-after for his expertise in historically informed playing. Guest appearances have taken him to orchestras such as the Bamberger Symphoniker, Staatskapelle Weimar, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, New Japan Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España, Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, Lahti Symphony Orchestra and the Radio Symphony Orchestras of Cologne, Hanover, Leipzig, Saarbrücken and Munich. Andreas Spering is much in demand on the international opera scene. He has conducted the great Mozart operas and a number of works by Händel, along with Beethoven’s “Fidelio” and Weber’s “Freischütz”, in Gothenburg, Copenhagen, Antwerp, Luxembourg, Nantes, Rouen, Strasbourg, Hanover, Essen, Nuremberg and Seville, and also at the Händel Festivals of Halle and Karlsruhe on several occasions. He conducted the revival series of Pierre Audi’s acclaimed production “And you must suffer” in Amsterdam, “Don Giovanni” and “La finta giardiniera” at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and Wagner’s “Das Rheingold” at the Kulturwald Festival (Bavarian Forest Cultural Festival). In 2018, he opened the 40th anniversary season of the Händel Festspiele Karlsruhe with an acclaimed production of “Alcina”. His artistic outlook was decisively influenced by Gerd Zacher, with whom he studied in Essen, as well as by Reinhard Goebel and his renowned ensemble Musica Antiqua Köln, of which Spering was a member as harpsichordist for several years. Spering is Artistic Director of the Brühler Schlosskonzerte near Bonn, where he established Germany’s first and only Haydn Festival, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2018. A selection of highly acclaimed CDs documents his artistic achievements. His recording of the early cantatas of Joseph Haydn (harmonia mundi) received several accolades, including the “Choc du Monde de la Musique”. The recording of the Haydn oratorio “Il ritorno di Tobia” (Naxos) received the German Record Critics’ Annual Award. Especially well received was the recording of Mozart Arias (Sony) with Sabine Meyer and the Kammerorchester Basel.
Frequently praised for a colourful, flexible voice and graceful stage presence, Canadian soprano Layla Claire has recently expanded her repertoire with a highly successful role debut as Handel’s Alcina at Karlsruhe Händel-Festspiele, conducted by Andreas Spering. This marked Claire’s return to Karlsruhe after her first foray into Handel there in 2015, as Tusnelda (Arminio), which brought her universal acclaim as “a wonderful discovery” (Der Neue Merkur), and now available on Decca Classics.
Her 2019/20 season continued Layla’s Handel theme with the new production of Belshazzar at Opernhaus Zürich conducted by Laurence Cummings, followed by a return to the title role of Alcina with Staatsoper Hamburg. She will also make her debut as Rodelinda with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra in July 2020.
Highlights of past opera seasons include a debut at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence as Sandrina in Mozart’s La finta giardiniera broadcast throughout Europe on ARTE, bringing the soprano immediate European attention, and leading to a re-engagement with the Festival for a production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and most recently a role debut as Catherine Earnshaw in Opéra National de Lorraine’s production of Wuthering Heights by Herrmann.
Layla Claire was a member of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, making her debut there as Tebaldo (Don Carlos) under Yannick Nézet-Séguin. She has since returned to The Met’s stage for several guest appearances including the creation of the role of Helena in the Baroque pastiche The Enchanted Island under William Christie (available on Erato Classics on DVD) and as Anne Trulove in The Rake’s Progress. Layla released her solo album, Songbird in 2017; Opera News described her soprano as “one of the most heartwarmingly beautiful around”.
The Philharmonic State Orchestra is Hamburg’s largest and oldest orchestra, looking back on many years of musical history. When the “Philharmonic Orchestra” and the “Orchestra of the Hamburg Municipal Theatre” merged in 1934, two tradition-steeped orchestras combined. Philharmonic concerts have been performed in Hamburg since 1828, artists such as Clara Schumann, Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms being regular guests of the Philharmonic Society. The history of the opera company goes back even further: Hamburg has been home to musical theatre since 1678, even if a regular opera or theatre orchestra was only formed later. To this day, the Philharmonic State Orchestra has embodied the sound of the Hansa City, a concert and opera orchestra in one.
During its long history, the orchestra encountered great artist personalities. Apart from composers of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, such as Telemann, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Mahler, Prokofiev and Stravinsky, since the 20th century chief conductors such as Karl Muck, Joseph Keilberth, Eugen Jochum, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Horst Stein, Aldo Ceccato, Christoph von Dohnányi, Gerd Albrecht, Ingo Metzmacher and Simone Young have shaped the orchestra’s sound. Renowned conductors of the pre-war era such as Otto Klemperer, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Bruno Walter, Karl Böhm and Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt gave brilliant performances, as did outstanding conductors of our times: suffice it to mention Christian Thielemann, Semyon Bychkov, Kirill Petrenko, Sir Neville Marriner, Valery Gergiev and Sir Roger Norrington.
Starting with the 2015/2016 season, Kent Nagano has taken on the position of Hamburg’s General Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Philharmonic State Orchestra and the Hamburg State Opera. In his first season Kent Nagano initiated a new project, the Philharmonic Academy, focusing on experimentation and chamber music. In 2016 Nagano and the Philharmonic undertook a successful three-week concert tour in South America, a tour of Spain followed in 2019. Since 2017 Kent Nagano and the Philharmonic State Orchestra have continued the traditional Philharmonic Concerts at the new Elbphilharmonie, for which they commissioned Jörg Widmann to compose the oratorio ARCHE, which was given its world premiere during the hall’s opening festivities. The concert recording has been released at ECM.
The Philharmonic State Orchestra offers approximately 35 concerts per season and performs more than 240 performances per year at the Hamburg State Opera and the Hamburg Ballet John Neumeier, making it Hamburg’s busiest orchestra. The stylistic bandwidth covered by the 140 musicians, ranging from historically informed performance practice to contemporary works and including concert, opera and ballet repertoire, is unique throughout Germany. Chamber Music has a long tradition at the Philharmonic State Orchestra: what began in 1929 with a concert series for chamber orchestra has been continued since 1968 by a series of chamber music only.
In 2008 Simone Young and the Philharmonic State Orchestra won the Brahms Award of the Schleswig-Holstein Brahms Society. The orchestra has recorded the complete Ring by Wagner as well as the complete symphonies of Johannes Brahms and Anton Bruckner – the latter in the rarely-performed original versions – as well as works by Mahler, Hindemith and Berg, and has released DVDs of opera and ballet productions by Hosokawa, Offenbach, Reimann, Auerbach, J.S. Bach, Puccini, Poulenc and Weber.
The members of the Philharmonic State Orchestra feel equally beholden to Hamburg’s musical tradition and responsible for the city’s artistic future. Since 1978 the musicians have been participating in education programmes in Hamburg’s schools. Today, the orchestra maintains a broad education programme, including school and kindergarten visits, patronage for music projects, introductory events for children and family concerts. The orchestra’s own academy prepares young musicians for their professional careers. The Philharmonic’s musicians thereby make an equally enjoyable and valuable contribution to tomorrow’s music education in the music metropolis of Hamburg.
A concert programme dedicated exclusively to the oeuvre and importance of this one wonderful composer: Joseph Haydn. An artist who was obviously able to comprehend the world by the light of “Illumination”, and whose music gives us an idea of the divine world of wonder human life has to offer, beyond and alongside all the misery of reality. “My language is understood throughout the world,” Joseph Haydn is reported to have said. With Andreas Spering, we have invited an early-music specialist who is steeped in Haydn’s idiom and has made a name for himself with his own Haydn Festival and numerous award-winning recordings of the great Viennese classical composer.
Pre-Concert talk
60 minutes before the concert, dramaturge Savina Kationi will give a pre-concert talk (in german).
Venue: Elbphilharmonie, Grand Hall, Platz der Deutschen Einheit 4, 20457 Hamburg
Prices: € 65,00 / 52,00 / 41,00 / 28,00 / 12,00
