Fate knocks at the door in Beethoven’s iconic Symphony No. 5, and star baritone Christian Gerhaher brings Schönberg to life in a new orchestral arrangement.
Three short notes and one long. With this simple motif, Ludwig van Beethoven proved that music need not be complex to strike with elemental force. From the very first bars of his Symphony No. 5, he teaches us how swiftly and decisively a composer can set a mood – and command the listener’s full attention.
Principal Conductor Marie Jacquot and the Royal Danish Orchestra turn to one of classical music’s most legendary heirlooms and a cornerstone of European culture, as the strains of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 – long associated with the idea of fate knocking at the door – rise towards the gilded ceiling of The Opera House’s main stage. The symphony charts a journey from the brooding darkness of the opening movement to the radiant finale, crowned by its triumphant fanfare. It is music that compels, that lingers in the ear, and that sweeps its audience irresistibly along.
You may find yourself carried away as Jacquot leads the orchestra through Beethoven’s overture to Coriolan, written for a production of the play about the pride and downfall of a victorious Roman general.
The programme then shifts between both century and sound world. The distinguished German baritone Christian Gerhaher – one of the foremost lieder interpreters of his generation – takes the stage to perform Arnold Schönberg’s Das Buch der hängenden Gärten in a new orchestral arrangement. Composed in the wake of the composer’s own failed marriage and inspired by Stefan George’s poems recounting a doomed love affair, the work unfolds in a dreamlike atmosphere of fragile beauty and quiet dissolution. For the first time in Denmark, Gerhaher brings his refined artistry to Schönberg’s melancholic universe.