2017/18 Season

In the Elbphilharmonie’s second season, too, numerous international top ensembles are appearing in Hamburg. Conductors and orchestras from all over the world cannot wait to hear the new hall’s unique acoustics for themselves. For Hamburg music lovers, this means an attractive opportunity to compare different styles of playing under this acoustic magnifying glass.

Love and farewell, a feeling of being lost to the world, endless travels: Schubert’s song cycle »Winterreise«, written a year before he died, touches on great feelings and existential issues. Seven very different interpretations illuminate different facets of this Romantic classic: accompanied by an orchestra, a band or a barrel organ; as a performance, a meta-composition or in the guise of a reading by Elfriede Jelinek. Sophie Rois, Ian Bostridge, Matthias Goerne, Nico and the Navigators and others follow in Schubert’s footsteps at this dark time of year.

The Caucasus mountains stretch over a length of some 1,000 km and rise to a maximum height of 5,500 metres between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. An extremely varied landscape with a long tradition in ethnical, linguistic, political, religious and cultural terms: over the Easter weekend, the Elbphilharmonie highlights the Caucasus in a series of concerts that feature early Christian hymns as well as traditional folk music, classical music and jazz.

For a period of nearly 50 years, the composer Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) shaped musical life in Hamburg as the city’s Director of Music; he had sole responsibility for putting Hamburg on the cultural map, and together with Bach and Handel he defined the sound of the German Baroque. The NDR and the Elbphilharmonie are devoting a ten-day festival to Telemann to mark the 250th anniversary of his death: in the Neo-Baroque Laeiszhalle and in Hamburg’s churches, renowned Early Music specialists perform his operas, cantatas and instrumental works.

It’s no wonder that the most dashing tunes originate where the best beer is brewed. The regions of Bohemia and Moravia, which make up what is now the Czech Republic, have always been highly musical, with their folk songs, sometimes down-to-earth and sometimes lyrical, finding their way into the art music of composers like Dvořák, Smetana and Janáček. Several first-class classical ensembles from Prague and the surrounding area bring these tunes to the Elbphilharmonie Recital Hall.

As a composer, conductor and teacher Peter Eötvös, who was born in Transylvania in 1944, is one of modern music’s most prominent figures. His operas are among the most popular such works of the last 15 years, while his orchestral pieces combine shimmering soundscapes with often surprising effects. No less in demand with the world’s top orchestras are his shrewd readings of the great classics. To mark the beginning of his Elbphilharmonie residency, he gives the first performance of a new work from his pen with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam.

As the history of the Elbphilharmonie shows, it’s worth fighting to realise an ambitious vision, even when there are obstacles to be overcome. So, it is only consistent that the first complete season in Hamburg’s shiny new concert hall should come to an end with a one-month festival entitled »Utopia«. As in the last few years, all the city’s major orchestras and other musical institutions concentrate their artistic strengths for this Hamburg International Music Festival.

No, the Elbphilharmonie is not an opera house (and even less so a theatre showing musicals). But that doesn’t mean that operas cannot be performed here as well – in semi-staged or concert versions. By doing without costumes, scenery and props, either completely or in part, the real core of an opera comes out all the more vividly, namely the music.

The chance to curate an entire weekend at the Elbphilharmonie is an honour granted only to artists who bring an extra helping of originality with them. That applies, for example, to the Israeli Yaron Herman, the dervish of jazz piano and virtuoso world champion in improvisation. Bryce Dessner is another musician who sits, stands and plays between all available stools. He has been delighting indie fans as the guitarist of the band »The National« since the year 2001 and has recently made a name for himself as a fine composer of orchestral and chamber music as well as film scores.

Our suggestion for an ideal summer’s day: spend the day on the beach by the River Elbe, and go to a concert in the evening. The Elbphilharmonie is offering a sunny programme focusing on jazz, world music, film soundtracks and classical music spread over four weeks.

Consummate refinement, cultivated energy and absolute perfection are the hallmarks of what maestro Mariss Jansons calls the »Rolls-Royce of orchestras«. Jansons himself is in the driver’s seat twice at the Elbphilharmonie, leading his luxury ensemble through symphonies by Prokofiev and Mahler, while doyen of the rostrum Bernard Haitink contributes the Brahms Requiem.

»Powerful and soft – never trivial or sentimental,« is how the culture programme of Deutschlandradio described the voice of Matthias Goerne and the way he approaches his interpretations. And with these qualities, the baritone enjoys international success, be it on the opera stage or as a lieder and oratorio singer. At the Elbphilharmonie, too, Goerne appears in various roles: in an intimate format with piano accompaniment, in orchestral songs and in Henze’s scandal oratorio »Das Floß der Medusa«. As a bonus, he is also singing in two performances of »Die Walküre« at the Hamburg State Opera.

Titans among themselves: Murray Perahia and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields present all five of the Beethoven piano concertos spread over three days.

In the space of a week, the Recital Hall hosts guest appearances every night by the newcomers of the year, hand-picked by the directors of Europe’s leading concert halls.

It remains a mystery to this day how someone can be so detached yet so grounded in music as Frank Peter Zimmermann, one of the great violinists of our time. Accompanied by the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, he celebrates violin concertos by Bach, Beethoven, Schumann and Tchaikovsky.

His virtuosity and dedication are without compare: Daniil Trifonov, born in Nishni Novgorod in 1991, is an absolute high flier, and »a thoroughly ecstatic pianist« (Berliner Tagesspiegel). In the ProArte series he makes three appearances at the two Hamburg concert halls, and even gives the first performance of a piano concerto he has written himself.

There are works whose position in music history is akin to that of the big black monolith that appears amidst the ape-men in Stanley Kubrick’s »2001 – A Space Odyssey«: they impress with their sheer size and uniqueness, and upon first contact they cause a kind of aesthetic quantum leap. But these works are only rarely performed, as they call for considerable resources. All the better, then, that some of these masterpieces can now be heard at the Elbphilharmonie.

Since the Beatles and Udo Lindenberg made their breakthroughs here, at the latest, Hamburg has been a major rock and pop centre, with even its own local style emerging as the »Hamburg school«. The »Made in Hamburg« series presents musicians and bands who are carrying on the tradition.

On a steamship, below deck is where the ship’s turbine is located – the engine that propels the vessel through the water. That applies to the Kaistudio in the Elbphilharmonie’s brick base, where the Decoder Ensemble is working towards the future, full steam ahead. On four evenings the Hamburg avant-garde collective puts on experimental, cross-genre performances.

This time, the contemporary music festival focuses among other things on Gérard Grisey’s hits in the genre of spectral music that are rich in tone colour. The concerts are split between Kampnagel and the Elbphilharmonie.

Krautrocker Manuel Göttsching revolutionised electronic music in the early 1980s and became one of the pioneers of techno. A three-day exploration of endless sound worlds.

Try out the Elbphilharmonie! One-hour concerts with great music played by the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra under its chief conductor Thomas Hengelbrock, but in a casual atmosphere with bargain tickets. Who says classical music is an elitist thing?

The Elbphilharmonie doesn’t only offer classical music. The who’s who of jazz are regular guests here, as can be heard in the »Jazz at the Phil« series as well as in numerous special concerts. Purists continue to go to the »Jazz Piano« series at the Laeiszhalle. And musicians from all over the globe and from many different genres are invited to the Weltphilharmonie. In addition, the »Klassik der Welt« series presents expeditions to the art music of the world’s peoples and continents.

Good music for everyone also means good music for young ones. The Elbphilharmonie offers a range of children's concerts, workshops and other event formats to help children discover the glorious world of music. A special emphasis is placed on active participation, as we know from experience that taking part is much more fun than sitting on the sidelines.