In this event, one of the Denizbank Concerts, the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Antonio Pirolli) will first accompany violinist Özgecan Günöz and cellist Onur Şenler in Johannes Brahms’s three-movement Double Concerto in A minor, Opus 102. This piece, composed in 1887, is the composer’s last work involving an orchestra. At the first performance in Cologne the cellist was Robert Hausmann, while the violin part was played by Brahms’s old friend Joseph Joachim, from whom he had become estranged. In fact, the work is seen as being in part a gesture of reconciliation. It makes use of the motif A-E-F, a permutation of F-A-E, which stood for Joachim’s personal motto Frei aber einsam (‘Free but lonely’).
In the second half, the orchestra will play Anton Bruckner’s four-movement Symphony No 7 in E major. Written between 1881 and 1883 and dedicated to Ludwig II of Bavaria, this work was revised in 1885. The premiere, which took place at the opera house in Leipzig at the end of 1884, brought Bruckner the greatest success he had ever known. The second movement of this symphony was broadcast on Nazi German radio on January 31, 1943, following Germany’s defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad.
Issue 67, December 2024
Beauty in the Wilderness
