Once again, we have been invited to the Musikfest Berlin at the start of this season, led by our principal conductor Joana Mallwitz. The programme with the Rundfunkchor features Hans Werner Henze’s Symphony No. 9, with which we will then travel to perform at the Lucerne Festival.

The composer was an avowed anti-fascist. In grappling with Germany’s Nazi past, he created with this work a harrowing memorial against fascism and war—an “apotheosis of the terrible and the painful,” which he described as the “summa summarum” of his oeuvre.

Originally commissioned by the Berliner Festwochen, this large-scale “dramatic poem without a stage” is now being performed as part of the anniversary year of the Berliner Festspiele and to mark the 100th birthday of the composer, who passed away in 2012.