Alan Gilbert conducts Beethoven and Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg composed his melodrama »A Survivor from Warsaw« in 1947 as a musical memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It only lasts seven minutes, but is nevertheless a monumental piece. The composer, who had readopted the Jewish faith, combines his fascinating music with a description of events from a narrator hidden in the sewers, alongside German orders, martial rhythms – and finally the hopeful Hebrew words of the »Shma Yisrael«, with which Jewish people prepare themselves for death.

The NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and its chief conductor Alan Gilbert will present the work, with Dominique Horwitz as narrator, as part of the 2024 Hamburg International Music Festival, whose motto is »War and Peace«. The French-German actor and chansonnier is in great demand for musical works with a literary vein – from Tom Waits’s »Black Rider« to Stravinsky’s »Soldier’s Tale«.

Beethoven’s famous Ninth Symphony then paves the way towards hope and brotherhood. Its rousing finale culminates in Friedrich Schiller’s verse »All men shall become brothers«, which prevails against all the forces of destruction. »Freude, schöner Götterfunken!« (Joy, beautiful spark of the gods!) – in the Elbphilharmonie with a top-level cast including US soprano Susanna Phillips, star alto Gerhild Romberger and bass Michael Nagy.

As part of the International Music Festival, the American author Jeremy Eichler will talk to Alan Gilbert about his book and the power of music in remembrance culture. In addition to works by Britten, Strauss and Shostakovich, he will also discuss Schoenberg’s »A Survivor from Warsaw«.