Hamburger Camerata / Edward Leach / Christoph Eß / Simon Gaudenz

Nighttime reflections

Is nature beautiful or dangerous? Is it controllable or unpredictable? Do humans need it to survive or does it need humans to survive? Such questions are directly connected to the current debate about climate change and the exploitation of the earth. But they have also formed the basis of many musical works that have increasingly dealt with nature since the Age of Enlightenment. In his early symphony cycle »Die Tageszeiten« (The Times of Day), Joseph Haydn, a master of depicting nature in sound, drew a bow from the idyllic, grateful effect of a sunrise to the frighteningly helpless feeling of an evening thunderstorm.