Sun, Jan. 28, 2024, 11.00 am | Elbphilharmonie, Recital Hall
Alexander Zemlinsky: "Maiblumen blühten überall" for soprano and string sextet
Richard Strauss: "Metamorphoses" realization of the "original version" for string sextet by Rudolf Leopold
Arnold Schoenberg: "Transfigured Night String sextet op. 4
Claire Gascoin
Sebastian Deutscher
Mette Tjærby Korneliusen
Maria Rallo Muguruza
Thomas Rühl
Clara Grünwald
Merlin Schirmer
Doublebass: Felix von Werder
Birthplace:
France
Studies:
Bachelor’s degree at the Musikhochschule Leipzig, Master’s degree at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna,
Prizes:
Kammeroper Rheinsberg (2015), Brahms competition (2014) Clara-
Schumann competition (2014), owner of a scholarship of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes
Master classes:
Claudia Visca, Krassimira Stoyanova
Relation to the Hamburg State Opera:
Member of the International Opera Studio of the Hamburg State Opera since the 2022/2023 season
Important parts:
Ottone (L’incoronazione di Poppea), Carmen (Carmen), Testo (Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda), Aschenputtel (Cenerentola), Annina (Romilda e Costanza), et al.
Stages:
Staatstheater Cottbus, Oper Krakau, Opéra de Lyon, Royal Opera House Muscat, Opera de Tenerife, et al.
Cooperations with directors:
Michael Sturminger, et al.
Cooperations with conductors:
Stéphane Fuget, Antonino Fogliani, et al.
Sebastian Deutscher hails from Berlin. He received his first violin lessons at the age of four from his father. While attending the Music High School Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, where his teacher was Ursula Scholz, he received a scholarship to attend the summer of 1997 at the Interlochen Music Camp in the USA. As the winner of national and international competitions, he has undertaken concert tours throughout Europe, followed by solo performances with orchestras at Berlin’s Philharmonie and Komische Oper. He studied with Werner Scholz at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music and with Antje Weithaas at the Berlin University of the Arts, and from 2007 onwards with Sebastian Hamann at the Lucerne Music Academy. Numerous master courses, e.g. in Cologne, Schönthal Abbey, Rostock, Weimar and Lucerne, rounded out his studies. Sebastian Deutscher taught at music schools in Berlin-Marzahn and Strausberg. In 2003 he began his orchestral career, playing at the Deutsche Oper Berlin until 2004, became section leader of the Opera and Museum Orchestra in Frankfurt between 2005 and 2015, and has been section leader of the second violin section of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra since 2015. His work with Ensemble Sherazade, a chamber music ensemble which combines various artforms, is particularly meaningful to him.
Mette Tjærby Korneliusen, born in Copenhagen in 1975, began playing the violin when she was four years old. She studied her instrument in Copenhagen and London. From 1994 to 1997 she was a member of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and the European Union Youth Orchestra. She is a founding member of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and has been a member of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra since 2003. As a chamber musician, she has formed the Duo Mignon with pianist Mimi Kjær since 1993; she was also a violinist in the Helios Quartet for about ten years. Since 2011 she has been a member of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra.
Maria Rallo Muguruza was born in Hondarribia, Spain, in 1996. She studied viola with Pauline Sachse in Dresden. She gained her first orchestral experiences as a member of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and the academy of the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin. She has been a member of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra since 2017.
Merlin Schirmer was born in Stuttgart in 1988. His first cello teacher was Erik Borgir, who awakened an interest in contemporary music in his student early on. Merlin Schirmer studied in Stuttgart and Vienna, his teachers including Rudolf Gleißner, Claudio Bohórquez and Valentin Erben, cellist of the former Alban Berg Quartet. Early on, he developed the wish to join a major opera or symphony orchestra. First steps on his path toward this goal were his membership in the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester founded by Claudio Abbado and an internship with the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart. Towards the end of his studies, Merlin Schirmer was first appointed principal cellist of the Jena Philharmonic for a year and then joined the Dresden Philharmonic for another year as a cellist, before becoming a member of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra in August 2015.
Felix von Werder was born in 1990, grew up in Kiel and started playing the double bass when he was seven. After influential years in the National Youth Orchestra of Germany, he began studying double bass right after graduating from secondary school in 2009; Ekkehard Beringer (NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra) was his teacher at the Hanover Academy of Music, Theatre and Media. His studies were complemented by master courses with Dorin Marc, Esko Laine and Nabil Shehata, among others. He also spent a year at the Janáček Academy in Brno, Czech Republic, in the class of Miloslav Jelínek. During his studies, Felix von Werder held a scholarship of the Joseph Joachim Academy of the NDR Radio Philharmonic. Even during his last year of studies, he received an engagement there for the 2017/18 season before joining the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra in October 2018. He has played as a substitute in Göttingen and Kiel, at the Hanover and Braunschweig State Theatres and at the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne. A sought-after and passionate chamber musician, his artistic collaboration with musicians such as Avi Avital is characterized by the wish to expand the double bass literature by unknown works, and to convey these to a larger audience. He finds educational work similarly important and therefore enjoys coaching youth orchestras, for example the Schleswig-Holstein State Youth Orchestra.
"Everything is new in May", is the motto of the 3rd Chamber Concert already in January: all signs point to change, transformation and progress. Alexander Zemlinsky is probably best known to the night world as an opera composer, but the works of his youth reveal a decadence of Sturm und Drang, especially in chamber music. Thus, in his "Maiblumen blühen überall" ("May Flowers Bloom Everywhere"), which remained unfinished, one finds not only the fervent melancholy and burning death wish of the Fin de Siècle, but also the desire of a young musician for the world. Richard Strauss, on the other hand, wrote "Metamorphoses" at a completely different point in his life: at the age of 81, he felt the creeping shadows of death approaching. This composition is one of Strauss' most important late works and was written during a time of horror. First notes can be dated back to summer 1944, when death and destruction were omnipresent. "Metamorphoses," not variations, is what the composer called the piece, which is divided into three parts, in which themes are almost imperceptibly transformed, revisited and reshaped as they progress. The goal of the change is revealed shortly before the end: Strauss quotes the beginning of the funeral march from Beethoven's "Eroica" and writes to it: "In memoriam". The work thus becomes a lament for the world and for life itself. Arnold Schoenberg also found significant final words in music, albeit in an entirely different historical context. In 1899, he composed the string sextet "Verklärte Nacht" (Transfigured Night) and thus, in a sense, found an end to the 19th century. The work provoked the most violent reactions at its premiere in Vienna in 1902; according to Schönberg, it was "hissed out and caused unrest and fistfights." Thus, this example shows very clearly how times and tastes change, for today the "Verklärte Nacht" ranks among the most beautiful of string literature, an intoxicating piece of turn-of-the-century music.
Venue: Elbphilharmonie, Recital Hall, Platz der Deutschen Einheit 4, 20457 Hamburg
Prices: € 28,00 / 20,00 / 14,00 / 10,00