Over to Berlin this week for a concert by the Staatskapelle-Berlin led by Daniel Barenboim, recorded September 11, 2020 by RBB Berlin.
The concert opens with a performance of Initiale by Pierre Boulez – it’s followed by the Prelude from Die Meistersinger by Wagner. And then Jörg Widmann’s Zeitensprünge: 450 Takte Für Orchester and ending with Beethoven’s Symphony Number 7.
Jörg Widmann is the third most performed living contemporary composer in the world. Formerly a clarinet and composition professor at the University of Music Freiburg, he holds a composition professorship at the Barenboim–Said Akademie. His most important compositions are the concert overture Con brio, the opera Babylon, an oratorio Arche, Viola Concerto, Friedenskantate and the trumpet concerto Towards Paradise. Widmann has written musical tributes to Classical and Romantic composers. He was awarded the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art in 2018 and the Bach Prize of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg in 2023. He was Gewandhaus composer of the Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig and composer in residence for the Berlin Philharmonic.
Daniel Barenboim previously served as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris and La Scala in Milan, and he is also the founder, along with Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said, of the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra. Barenboim has received many awards and prizes, including seven Grammy awards, an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, France’s Legion of Honour as a Commander, Grand Officier and Grand Cross, the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, and Spain’s Prince of Asturias Concord Award.
Barenboim is currently the only publicly documented person in the world to hold both Israeli and Palestinian citizenships. He is a resolute critic of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, and one of the most visible and influential cultural figures in promoting dialogue between the two peoples.
On to the concert.
