Sun, Jan. 28, 2024, 11.00 am | Elbphilharmonie, Recital Hall
Alexander Zemlinsky: "Maiblumen blühten überall" for soprano and string sextet
Richard Strauss: "Metamorphoses" realization of the "original version" for string sextet by Rudolf Leopold
Arnold Schoenberg: "Transfigured Night String sextet op. 4
Claire Gascoin
Sebastian Deutscher
Mette Tjærby Korneliusen
Maria Rallo Muguruza
Thomas Rühl
Clara Grünwald
Merlin Schirmer
Doublebass: Felix von Werder
Birthplace:
France
Studies:
Bachelor’s degree at the Musikhochschule Leipzig, Master’s degree at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna,
Prizes:
Kammeroper Rheinsberg (2015), Brahms competition (2014) Clara-
Schumann competition (2014), owner of a scholarship of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes
Master classes:
Claudia Visca, Krassimira Stoyanova
Relation to the Hamburg State Opera:
Member of the International Opera Studio of the Hamburg State Opera since the 2022/2023 season
Important parts:
Ottone (L’incoronazione di Poppea), Carmen (Carmen), Testo (Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda), Aschenputtel (Cenerentola), Annina (Romilda e Costanza), et al.
Stages:
Staatstheater Cottbus, Oper Krakau, Opéra de Lyon, Royal Opera House Muscat, Opera de Tenerife, et al.
Cooperations with directors:
Michael Sturminger, et al.
Cooperations with conductors:
Stéphane Fuget, Antonino Fogliani, et al.
Sebastian Deutscher was born in Berlin. He received his first violin lessons from his father. During his studies at the Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Music High School in Berlin, where he was taught by Ursula Scholz, he was awarded a scholarship, as a result of which he spent the summer of 1997 at the Interlochen music camp in the USA. He completed his studies with Werner Scholz at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin and with Antje Weithaas at the Berlin University of the Arts as well as with Sebastian Hamann at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. Numerous masterclasses in Cologne, Schönthal Monastery, Rostock, Weimar and Lucerne, among others, complemented his studies.
He began his orchestral career in 2003, played at the Deutsche Oper Berlin until 2004, was principal violin of the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra from 2005 to 2015 and has been principal 2nd violin of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra since 2015. As part of his work, he played as a soloist in the Elbphilharmonie under Kent Nagano.
The connection between tradition and the present is particularly close to his heart. In 2020, he founded the Hej Hans Festival, an intergenerational cross-over music festival on Lake Plön. He also initiated Classic-Tunes, a project that uses blockchain technology to combine classical music and visual arts in a new way. He is also a founding member of the Franco-German ensemble Oriol, which performs vocal music in a jazz club atmosphere.
He plays a violin by P. Guarneri from 1750, which is privately owned and has been loaned to the Philharmonic State Orchestra.
Mette Tjærby Korneliusen, born in Copenhagen in 1975, began playing the violin when she was four years old. She studied her instrument in Copenhagen and London. From 1994 to 1997 she was a member of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and the European Union Youth Orchestra. She is a founding member of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and has been a member of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra since 2003. As a chamber musician, she has formed the Duo Mignon with pianist Mimi Kjær since 1993; she was also a violinist in the Helios Quartet for about ten years. Since 2011 she has been a member of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra.
Maria Rallo Muguruza was born in Hondarribia, Spain, in 1996. She studied viola with Pauline Sachse in Dresden. She gained her first orchestral experiences as a member of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and the academy of the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin. She has been a member of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra since 2017.
Born in Regensburg in 1978, violist Thomas Rühl received his first violin and viola lessons at the age of nine. After graduating from secondary school, he began studying viola in 1998 with Gertrude Rossbacher at the Bremen Music Academy. In 2002 he took up studies with Barbara Westphal at the Lübeck Music Academy, where he received the artistic diploma in 2005 and a postgraduate degree in 2008, both with distinction. He attended master courses with Jürgen Kussmaul, Heidi Castleman, James Dunham and Walter Levin and received the award of the Marie-Luise Imbusch Foundation. From 2002 to 2005 Thomas Rühl was principal viola of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie. An internship took him to the NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg in 2003/04. For six years, he taught at the Lübeck Music Academy; today he coaches for Jeunesses Musicales of Germany. Since 2006 he has been a member of the viola section of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra.
Clara Grünwald was born in Munich in 1990, receiving her first cello lessons at the age of six. From 2009 to 2015 she studied with Martin Ostertag at the Karlsruhe Music Academy and attended master courses with Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Wolfgang Boettcher, Guido Schiefen, Thomas Demenga and Morten Zeuthen. Clara Grünwald held scholarships from the Heinrich Hertz Society (2009) and from Yehudi Menuhin’s “Live Music Now” (2012). She gathered orchestral experience as a substitute of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and as a member of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra’s academy. Since 2015 she has been associate principal cellist of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra.
Merlin Schirmer was born in Stuttgart in 1988. His first cello teacher was Erik Borgir, who awakened an interest in contemporary music in his student early on. Merlin Schirmer studied in Stuttgart and Vienna, his teachers including Rudolf Gleißner, Claudio Bohórquez and Valentin Erben, cellist of the former Alban Berg Quartet. Early on, he developed the wish to join a major opera or symphony orchestra. First steps on his path toward this goal were his membership in the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester founded by Claudio Abbado and an internship with the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart. Towards the end of his studies, Merlin Schirmer was first appointed principal cellist of the Jena Philharmonic for a year and then joined the Dresden Philharmonic for another year as a cellist, before becoming a member of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra in August 2015.
Felix von Werder was born in 1990, grew up in Kiel and started playing the double bass when he was seven. After influential years in the National Youth Orchestra of Germany, he began studying double bass right after graduating from secondary school in 2009; Ekkehard Beringer (NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra) was his teacher at the Hanover Academy of Music, Theatre and Media. His studies were complemented by master courses with Dorin Marc, Esko Laine and Nabil Shehata, among others. He also spent a year at the Janáček Academy in Brno, Czech Republic, in the class of Miloslav Jelínek. During his studies, Felix von Werder held a scholarship of the Joseph Joachim Academy of the NDR Radio Philharmonic. Even during his last year of studies, he received an engagement there for the 2017/18 season before joining the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra in October 2018. He has played as a substitute in Göttingen and Kiel, at the Hanover and Braunschweig State Theatres and at the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne. A sought-after and passionate chamber musician, his artistic collaboration with musicians such as Avi Avital is characterized by the wish to expand the double bass literature by unknown works, and to convey these to a larger audience. He finds educational work similarly important and therefore enjoys coaching youth orchestras, for example the Schleswig-Holstein State Youth Orchestra.
"Everything is new in May", is the motto of the 3rd Chamber Concert already in January: all signs point to change, transformation and progress. Alexander Zemlinsky is probably best known to us as an opera composer, but the works of his youth reveal a decadence of Sturm und Drang, especially in chamber music. Thus, in his "Maiblumen blühen überall" ("May Flowers Bloom Everywhere"), which remained unfinished, one finds not only the fervent melancholy and burning death wish of the Fin de Siècle, but also the desire of a young musician for the world. Richard Strauss, on the other hand, wrote "Metamorphoses" at a completely different point in his life: at the age of 81, he felt the creeping shadows of death approaching. This composition is one of Strauss' most important late works and was written during a time of horror. First notes can be dated back to summer 1944, when death and destruction were omnipresent. "Metamorphoses," not variations, is what the composer called the piece, which is divided into three parts, in which themes are almost imperceptibly transformed, revisited and reshaped as they progress. The goal of the change is revealed shortly before the end: Strauss quotes the beginning of the funeral march from Beethoven's "Eroica" and writes to it: "In memoriam". The work thus becomes a lament for the world and for life itself. Arnold Schoenberg also found significant final words in music, albeit in an entirely different historical context. In 1899, he composed the string sextet "Verklärte Nacht" (Transfigured Night) and thus, in a sense, found an end to the 19th century. The work provoked the most violent reactions at its premiere in Vienna in 1902; according to Schönberg, it was "hissed out and caused unrest and fistfights." Thus, this example shows very clearly how times and tastes change, for today the "Verklärte Nacht" ranks among the most beautiful of string literature, an intoxicating piece of turn-of-the-century music.
Venue: Elbphilharmonie, Recital Hall, Platz der Deutschen Einheit 4, 20457 Hamburg
Prices: € 28,00 / 20,00 / 14,00 / 10,00
