FROM FAIRY TALES, EXPERIMENTS AND THE BEAUTY OF SOUND

The Wiener Symphoniker have always kept their ear closely attuned to the pulse of the present. Among other milestones, this led them to give the first performances of works by Arnold Schoenberg—today considered part of the classical canon. In September, the orchestra celebrates the composer’s birthday. Under the motto Happy Birthday, Arnold!, the programme at the Arnold Schoenberg Center features a work by the composer himself alongside a new composition by Chief Conductor Petr Popelka. His affinity for music that is “falling into our time”—firmly rooted in the present—is also passionately explored in his intimate musical talk format, the Hör-Bar at the Musikverein Wien.

Marking the 20th anniversary of Exilarte, the Wiener Symphoniker perform works by Hans Winterberg and Wilhelm Grosz under Katharina Wincor, while conductor Anja Bihlmaier juxtaposes György Ligeti’s Romanian Concerto with the Romanticism of Robert Schumann. How harmonious and exhilarating our present can sound is demonstrated by Petr Popelka with the world premiere of the new Piano Concerto by Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa.

The idea of musical contemporaneity is further embodied by the Wiener Symphoniker’s new Artistic Partner, conductor Elim Chan, who brings together music by Sofia Gubaidulina, Alfred Schnittke and Sergei Prokofiev in her musical fairytale evening. Violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja is herself an artist of the present: her piece Five Dreams, written for her own instrument, is performed here together with the orchestra’s principal cellist Christoph Stradner and conductor Maxim Emelyanychev.

Also arriving directly from our own time is the family opera at the MusikTheater an der Wien: in performances of Pierangelo Valtinoni’s The Little Prince, the Wiener Symphoniker appear as the opera orchestra.