Closing concert for Hart & Ziel (Heart & Soul) Week 2015
LUDWIG has put together a programme full of passion and longing for the 2015 Hart & Ziel concert. In his oratorio The Creation, Joseph Haydn described the chaos from which all life on earth emerged and humanity was eventually created. In Handel’s chilling aria Scherza Infida Ariodante sings of betrayal and despair, and in Mendelssohn’s Intermezzo Hermia is torn by fearful dreams of her lost love. In stark contrast to all this is Beethoven’s cheerful ‘Spring’ sonata, and Vivaldi’s flute concerto brims with joie de vivre. The Adagio from Brahms’s clarinet quintet is described as one of his finest works: already retired, Brahms was inspired by the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld, and in his final years he wrote a wonderfully melancholy joint piece in gipsy style. Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel needs little explanation: its sense of infinity and resignation has a hypnotic effect, and is perceived by many as restful. The programme concludes – how else? – with Gustav Mahler’s Das himmlische Leben, which sings of the heavenly joys of the afterlife.