CANCELLED: Chamber Music Recital / Symphoniker Hamburg

Nikolai Brücher is a composer, and at the same time he is in charge of the Symphoniker Hamburg’s music library. As such he is in a very fortunate position: not only does he accompany a first-class orchestra in its daily rehearsal work, he also has access to a huge collection of sheet music. The perfect conditions for a wide variety of inspiration, in other words. Several of his compositions have already been performed in Symphoniker concerts. Tonight, Brücher’s latest work is combined with quintets by Mozart and by the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had a true passion for the clarinet, as is shown by several compositions for the instrument. Among these is the Clarinet Quintet that he finished in 1789: his friend the clarinettist Anton Stadler was enchanted by the score, and composer Richard Strauss was later overwhelmed by »the beauty and gracefulness of Mozart’s melodies«.

Rautavaara’s First String Quintet »Les cieux inconnues« (The Unknown Heavens), completed in 1997, is marked by a mysterious, even mystical underlying mood. Rautavaara is justly regarded as one of the most important Finnish composers of the 20th century.