Once again, the Festival’s own Dresden Festival Orchestra under the baton of Ivor Bolton demonstrates how lively and fresh the romantic repertoire sounds when played on historical instruments. The sonorous beginning of the concert is marked by Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 in C-major, exemplary proof that even after Beethoven, greatness was possible in symphonic music. The work is shot through with a fascinatingly stringent thread of motifs and themes, creating intense sound effects. This is followed by Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1, whose epic character and monumental dimensions harbour a multitude of sonic contrasts. Soloist Martin Helmchen, one of the leading pianists of the younger generation, plays a historical instrument on this occasion.

Martin Helmchen – Piano
Dresden Festival Orchestra
Ivor Bolton – Conductor

• Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 8 in C-major D. 944 »Great«
• Johannes Brahms: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 1 in D-minor Op. 15

6:30 pm Pre-concert talk (Kulturpalast, event space of the central library, 1st floor)

An opera tale which fascinates, but also polarizes, which has been endlessly researched and discussed, without ever becoming exhausted: Richard Wagner’s monumental tetralogy of the »Ring« is all those things. With it, the composer tore down the genre’s boundaries, both in music and performance practice, with a bang. In four parts lasting sixteen hours, the protagonists of Wagner’s complex mythological universe endure fates and constellations which determine not only their own existence, but that of the entire world. »Das Rheingold« is the beginning of the epochal story of power and defeat, love and jealousy, war and peace – and not least of the essential, fundamental questions of the nature of life.

Vocal Soloists
Musicians of the Dresden Festival Orchestra and Concerto Köln
Kent Nagano – Conductor

Cycle »Der Ring des Nibelungen« I

• Richard Wagner »Das Rheingold«. Preliminary Evening of the Stage Ceremony »Der Ring des Nibelungen« in Four Acts (concert performance)

The »Ring«, historically informed

Continuing the project »Wagner-Lesarten« (Wagner Interpretations) initiated in 2016 by Kent Nagano, Concerto Köln and the NRW Art Foundation, and following on from brilliant performances of »Das Rheingold« in Cologne and Amsterdam, the Dresden Music Festival will host a revival and continuation of the project together with the Dresden Festival Orchestra. The goal is to illuminate and perform the entire »Ring« from the perspective of historically informed performance practice. By relocating the project to Dresden – the city where Wagner spent the formative years of his childhood and youth, where three of his operas were first performed, and where the history of ideas embodied in his »Ring« germinated – this performance workshop promises intriguing impulses in its development and implementation. The academic basis for the approach to and reconstruction of the instrumental, vocal, linguistic and stage practice of Wagner’s time is unique, bringing together musicians and academics of various disciplines in close cooperation.

Insula orchestra invites the prestigious period instrument ensemble Dresden Festival Orchestra to perform Mozart’s last symphony, the famous and majestic “Jupiter”, under the direction of Ivor Bolton. The cellist Jan Vogler, director of the festival since 2008, will be performing the solo part of Joseph Haydn’s First concerto. Both pieces are written in the same key, C major.

Jan Vogler – Cello
Dresden Festival Orchestra

• Joseph Haydn: Overture to the Oratorio »Il ritorno di Tobia«
• Joseph Haydn: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra Nro 1 in C major Hob. VIIb:1
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 41 in C major K. 551 »Jupiter«