CANCELLED: Symphoniker Hamburg / Europa Chor Akademie / Sylvain Cambreling

In 1940 the composer and organist Olivier Messiaen found himself a German prisoner of war for a few months: he wrote his »Quatuor pour la fin du temps« (Quartet for the End of Time) in a POW camp near Görlitz. Back in freedom, but still surrounded by the horrors of war, Messiaen wrote a composition in 1943/44 for the unusual combination of piano, ondes Martenot, women’s choir, percussion and strings. This was the first full-length work to make use of the electronic instrument ondes Martenot. The composer wrote the text for his »Three Small Liturgical Pieces« himself, expressing once more his deep religious feeling.

In 1773, the playwright and civil servant Tobias Philipp von Gebler wrote the play »Thamos, König in Ägypten«, which tells the story of the Egyptian king Menes and his son Thamos. The story illustrates the dangers of mixing love and power. In the same year, Mozart wrote incidental music for the play, and this had its first performance in Vienna in the spring of 1774.