NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Matthias Goerne / Mikko Franck

There is a similar level of confidence in Bach’s cantata »Ich habe genug«, which is inspired by the belief in a life after death. It opens with a gentle, swaying tune on the oboe, which is then adopted by the double bass; the verses Bach sets are taken from the Gospel of St Luke: as an old man, Simeon sees the infant Jesus and recognises him as the Redeemer. Now he is finally ready to die. Filled with the certainty of deliverance after death, the last of the three arias ends in lively triple time, full of dance-like grace and virtuoso coloratura.

Mikko Franck, principal conductor of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, interprets the motto of the Hamburg International Music Festival, »War and Peace«, with his choice of programme chiefly as an inner process of a person close to death. Yet the Finnish conductor opens his guest appearance with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra with a work that deals with the impact of a real war: in »The Wound-Dresser« for baritone and chamber orchestra, contemporary composer John Adams sets to music a poem by Walt Whitman about the American Civil War. Baritone Matthias Goerne is the vocal soloist, assuming the role of a doctor at the front who dresses the wounds of the mutilated soldiers.