Philharmoniker Hamburg / Louis Lortie / Simone Young

When a composer wishes to seduce a woman, especially a married one, he doesn´t write a love letter, he composes one. That is what Alban Berg did in the mid-1920s with his »Lyric Suite« in which the main motif consists of a sequence of the notes A-B-H-F – Berg’s initials, and those of his beloved, Hanna Fuchs. He further quoted the phrase »Du bist mein eigen« (You are my own) from Zemlinsky’s »Lyric Symphony«. The Lyric Suite was a complete success and Hanna Fuchs became Berg´s mistress. Alexander von Zemlinsky, on the other hand, was not so successful; he never managed to win over the much-sought-after muse Alma Schindler. His orchestral fantasy »Die Seejungfrau« (The Little Mermaid), based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, nonetheless wallows ecstatically in the opulent colours of Viennese Art Nouveau. Frédéric Chopin was another composer unhappily in love. His love for the unattainable singer Konstantia Gladowska inspired him to write the enchanting slow movement for his piano concerto – a dreamy miniature masterwork with tender piano phrasing. Simone Young and her Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra weave these sounds of seduction anew.