DEVELOPING SOUND THROUGH LISTENING

Every great orchestra grows out of the small. There is perhaps no better training ground for the rich symphonic sound than the transparency of chamber music: the musical sketchbooks of the great composers.

The Wiener Symphoniker can be heard in a wide variety of chamber music formations - entertaining audiences in the traditional Beisl concerts, and once again at the Seestudio during the Bregenz Festival in three “Ganz Persönlich” concerts, including performances by the Eight Cellists of the Wiener Symphoniker, who present works by Verdi, Puccini and Villa-Lobos. Another chamber concert features pieces by Elgar and Dvořák, while a string quartet evening brings together compositions by Janáček and Stöhr—where contemporary music meets the great classics.

An enthusiastic chamber musician is the Chief Conductor of the Wiener Symphoniker, Petr Popelka. The former bassist of the Staatskapelle Dresden enjoys rehearsing and performing with musicians from the orchestra—often from the piano. This will also be the case in the birthday concert for Arnold Schoenberg at the Arnold Schoenberg Center, which will feature the world premiere of a composition by Popelka (Dunkelsang), performed by mezzo-soprano Christina Bock.

How important chamber music is to Popelka can also be experienced in his musical talk format, the Hör-Bar. In an intimate and relaxed setting at the Musikverein Wien, he immerses audiences in the depths of music. Nowhere else can sound be understood so closely, passionately and insightfully.