CONCERT
VIENNA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
ORCHESTRA AS GUEST
BEETHOVEN CYCLE
FRAGMENTS - SILENCE
CHAMBER CONCERTS
SOLOIST CONCERTS
CANTO LIRICO
SONG END
CAMERATA SALZBURG
MOZART-MATINEES
"In the last few weeks, we have been planning a programme with a total of 53 concerts in close cooperation with the artists and the orchestras and ensembles. We will postpone series that we cannot perform this year due to the specifications and scheduling restrictions until the 2021 festival summer, in particular the Ouverture spirituelle under the title "Pax". We have adapted some concert programmes so that they can be performed without a break this summer, like all concerts, and we have even redesigned others, such as the small series under the title "Fragments - Silence" in the Kollegienkirche", says Florian Wiegand, concert director.
The concert programme of the modified Festival 2020 is based on the basic framework of the festival planning: i.e. concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra as well as guest orchestras, soloist concerts, song recitals, chamber concerts as well as concerts with New Music.
Unfortunately, the overture spiritual, which is particularly important this year, cannot take place - it should reflect the founding mission of the festival "as one of the first peace projects" under the title "Pax". However, the planned events will be made up for in July 2021. Even those concert series that were especially conceived for the anniversary year - such as "Time with Feldman" and "Moments musicaux" - will not be cancelled but postponed until next year. Modifications were also necessary at the venues. For example, the festival will not be able to use the hall in which most concerts usually take place - the Great Hall of the Mozarteum Foundation - this summer. Instead, the Mozart matinees, the concerts of the Camerata Salzburg, the song recitals and chamber concerts will take place in the Haus für Mozart. The Beethoven cycle with Igor Levit will also move to the Haus für Mozart and the Großes Festspielhaus.
In a modified festival programme, however, one very special concert venue must not be missing: the Collegiate Church. With reference to Luigi Nono, a small but fine series is being realized there under the title "Fragments - Silence", which the Salzburg Festival has planned with ensembles and artists whose original projects had to be modified or cancelled this summer due to the specifications and restrictions. Emilio Pomàrico and Klangforum Wien will start the series with in vain by Georg Friedrich Haas, followed by Cantando Admont under the direction of Cordula Bürgi. At the centre of the Minguet Quartet"s programme is the work that gives the series its title: Fragments - Silence, on Diotima for string quartet by Luigi Nono. It is based on poems by Friedrich Hölderlin, whose 250th birthday - like that of Beethoven - is being celebrated this year. They are "silent songs from other rooms, from other skies. The performers may "sing" them", the composer explained. The "fragments" that Nono uses in his work are taken from pieces by Johannes Ockeghem, Giuseppe Verdi and Ludwig van Beethoven, which are part of this concert program. Otto Katzameier and the Klangforum Wien under the direction of Sylvain Cambreling dedicate the last concert of the series to the work of Salvatore Sciarrino.
The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra has set the musical standard for which the Salzburg Festival is world-famous. In 1925 they performed for the first time under their famous name at the Salzburg Festival. Before that, from 1921 onwards, individual members of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra had already been involved. In 1922, opera was performed for the first time at the Salzburg Festival as a guest performance from the Vienna State Opera. This year, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra will feature: Andris Nelsons, Riccardo Muti, Christian Thielemann - with Elīna Garanča as soloist - and Gustavo Dudamel - with Evgeny Kissin at the piano.
The Orchestra Guest series will feature the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra under Kent Nagano, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra with its founder Daniel Barenboim and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under chief conductor Kirill Petrenko.
The works of Ludwig van Beethoven, the annual regent, will be performed throughout all concert series, culminating in a Beethoven cycle with Igor Levit, the Beethoven pianist of the younger generation. Igor Levit traverses the cosmos of the 32 piano sonatas on eight evenings at the Haus für Mozart.
Daniel Barenboim interprets the monumental Diabelli Variations in the series of soloist concerts. With the piano recital on August 19, 2020 he will celebrate his 70th stage anniversary to the day. Further soloist concerts will include Martha Argerich, Renaud Capuçon, András Schiff, Grigory Sokolov, Daniil Trifonov and Arcadi Volodos.
Under the title "Canto lirico", the greatest singers of our time can be experienced: Sonya Yoncheva, together with the Cappella Mediterranea and under the musical direction of Leonardo García Alarcón, takes a journey into the early days of the genre. Cecilia Bartoli sings works by Handel and his contemporaries. Gianluca Capuano conducts Les Musiciens du Prince-Monaco. Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov devote themselves to the Russian repertoire and sing excerpts from Peter I. Tchaikovsky"s operas Queen of Spades, Eugene Onegin and Iolanta. Mikhail Tatarnikov conducts the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg in the Großes Festspielhaus. Juan Diego Flórez in turn takes on works by Bellini, Verdi, Massenet or Puccini. He is accompanied by Vincenzo Scalera at the piano.
The song recitals are performed by Matthias Goerne together with Jan Lisiecki and Benjamin Bernheim with Carrie-Ann Matheson at the piano.
Chamber concerts are given by the Belcea Quartet and the Hagen Quartet. Martin Grubinger & The Percussive Planet Ensemble will also perform three of the great percussion sextets by Wolfgang Rihm, Iannis Xenakis and Steve Reich under the title The Big Three.
The Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg has a long tradition at the festival: as early as 1921, members of the Mozarteum Orchestra gave their first orchestral concerts together with members of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra. Since 1949 the orchestra has been playing the Mozart Matinees, which were founded by Bernhard Paumgartner. In this special festival summer, the matinees will take place not in the Great Hall of the Mozarteum Foundation but in the Haus für Mozart and only once each time. They will be conducted by Ivor Bolton, Andrew Manze, Ádám Fischer and Gianluca Capuano, who will stand at the podium of the Mozarteum Orchestra for the first time during the Mozart Matinees.
Bernhard Paumgartner, President of the Salzburg Festival from 1960 to 1971, was not only the founder of the Mozart Matinees but also the founder of the Camerata Salzburg. The orchestra can be heard twice - under the baton of Ingo Metzmacher and with Patricia Kopatchinskaja as well as under Manfred Honeck and with Daniel Ottensamer - in the Haus für Mozart.