Photo credit: EVISCO

This year, in which the Bayerisches Staatorchester celebrates 500 years since its inception, the Munich Opera Horns have put together a very special birthday present, their album Voyager. The title is particularly apt. Since the horn symbolises the music of the German Romantic and Postromantic eras, it’s firstly a journey into the past. Let’s not forget that the Bayerisches Staatsorchester has always had renowned hornists in its ranks; I’d just like to mention one of them by name: Franz Strauss, Richard Strauss’s father, principal horn during the earliest Bayreuth Festivals and so esteemed that even Richard Wagner, never quick to extol anyone’s virtues, said of him, “When he plays, one can forgive him anything.” The Munich Opera Horns continue the long and wonderful tradition of performing compositions for their instrument as well as interpretations of repertoire classics. However, they are also firmly rooted in the present, showcasing new pieces composed especially for them. Alongside their magnificent performances in the Nationaltheater, the Munich Opera Horns have been playing together for fifteen years. Their aim is always to demonstrate, through their sublime musicianship, how both radiance and tenderness can be teased out of their instruments. We should really call them the Munich Opera Wunderhorns! The recording you’re listening to is ample proof.

Serge Dorny General Director, Bayerische Staatsoper

Click here to buy the CD

Photo credit: EVISCO

If you should ever look for Paolo Taballione at the opera, you are most likely to find him in the rehearsal room. His favorite instrument, apart from his own in the orchestra, is the guitar, and his favorite month is August. He prefers to spend his free time with his children.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

On June 10, 1865, Richard Wagner’s “plot in three acts” Tristan und Isolde was premiered at the National Theatre in Munich. After previous attempts to stage the work failed at several opera houses – including the Vienna Court Opera after nearly 80 rehearsals – the unconditional support of Ludwig II in Munich finally made the project possible. The myth about the unperformability of this opera was nevertheless perpetuated after the premiere Tristan Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld died at the age of 29 only a few weeks after the first performances. Conductors Felix Mottl and Josef Keilberth also suffered breakdowns while conducting Tristan in Munich, leading to the deaths of both. To this day, Tristan und Isolde is a risk for every theatre – because of the immense musical demands on the performers (especially in the title roles), but also because of the outward lack of action with all the more existential themes that are dealt with in the opera. The longing for death of the two lovers pervades all three acts, until the ambivalent harmonic course of the music is resolved with Isolde’s transfiguration at the end. The “Tristan chord” with which the musical prelude begins advanced in music history to become a tonal cipher for a modern tonal language that would culminate in the atonality of the 20th century.

Photo credit: Joseph Albert: Ludwig and Malwine Schnorr von Carolsfeld as “Tristan und Isolde” in the Munich premiere, 1865, Munich, State Administration of Palaces. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Albert_-_Ludwig_und_Malwine_Schnorr_von_Carolsfeld_-_Tristan_und_Isolde,_1865e.jpg#/media/Datei:Joseph_Albert_-_Ludwig_und_Malwine_Schnorr_von_Carolsfeld_-_Tristan_und_Isolde,_1865e.jpg

Trumpet player Frank Bloedhorn introduces himself and talks about the 2017 Asia Tour.

The Hermann Levi Academy supports talented young musicians by giving them the opportunity to practice with the orchestra under professional conditions, discovering  opera literature with its specific requirements as well as symphonic music.

The Bayerisches Staatsorchester’s Hermann Levi Academy was originally founded in 2002 under the name “Orchestra Academy of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester”. Its task was to pass on the traditions of one of the oldest German orchestras to young musicians and consequently keep this particularly special sound and performance culture alive for subsequent generations. Since July 2021, the Orchestra Academy has included the “Hermann Levi Academy” title in its name to honour Hermann Levi’s importance in the world of music and in particular his forward-looking creativity at the National Theatre in Munich.

On June 12, the Hermann Levi Academy will perform a diverse program at the Alte Pinakothek. A Sonata da chiesa by the Baroque composer Arcangelo Corelli and the Piano Quintet in B minor by Johannes Brahms will be heard, as will the Variations on the Song Greensleeves for double bass solo by Knut Guettler, who died ten years ago, and excerpts from the Sonata for Violoncello solo by György Sándor Ligeti.

Photo credit: Frank Bloedhorn

When Heike Steinbrecher is not making music, she is busy with her young dog and enjoys the walks through forest and nature together. She would like to live in northern Greece and learn the local language to get to know the country and its people even better.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Franz Lachner was born in Rain am Lech on April 2, 1803, and after other stations in Munich, Vienna and Mannheim, he conducted opera performances, the concert series of the Musical Academy and church music as Court Kapellmeister from 1836 to 1868. Lachner’s appointment as Court Kapellmeister marked the beginning of the venerable series of Bavarian General Music Directors. Now it was no longer the concertmaster who was in charge, but a conductor with a baton leading an ever-growing ensemble. The orchestra included excellent virtuosos such as the clarinetist Heinrich Baermann, the horn player Franz Strauss and members of the Moralt family, who thrilled all of Europe on their travels as a string quartet. New instruments entered the orchestra, valves expanded the range of horns and trumpets, and the Munich solo flutist Theobald Böhm developed a new key system for woodwind instruments that is still in use today.

Photo credit: Franz Lachner. Lithograph by Andreas Staub. Public domain photograph, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4372774

One opera was also premiered in Munich by the pioneer of German-language opera Carl Maria von Weber, whose Freischütz still enjoys particular popularity today. The libretto for the Singspiel in one act Abu Hassan was written by Franz Karl Hiemer and is based on a story from One Thousand and One Nights. Weber was private secretary to Ludwig, Duke of Württemberg, who was in debt and considered corrupt, when he planned the adaptation of a debt story together with Hiemer, a theater poet from Stuttgart. The premiere, however, took place during Weber’s stay in Munich, or more precisely: on June 4, 1811, the first performance of the opera went over the stage at the then Munich Court Theater. In the years that followed, the work enjoyed great popularity and found its way onto the stages of Stuttgart, Frankfurt am Main, Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Copenhagen and London, among others. However, as the common combination of shorter plays with opera acts slowly disappeared, performances of Abu Hassan also became more sparse. Nevertheless, in the 20th century there were performances conducted by Bruno Walter in Berlin, Felix Mottl in Munich, and Richard Strauss in Vienna, for example.

Image credit: By Caroline Bardua - 1. umnofil.ru2. GalleriX, Public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22630453

On May 22 and 23, Vladimir Jurowski conducted the Bayerisches Staatsorchester in the 6th Academy Concert, featuring music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Robert Schumann and Gustav Mahler. Gerhard Oppitz was the soloist in Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, and Louise Alder took the vocal part in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

On May 15, the new production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida premiered. Daniele Rustioni conducted the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, and Damiano Michieletto directed. Elena Stikhina was featured in the title role.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

On May 7, the production Il ritorno / Das Jahr des magischen Denkens premiered as part of the Ja, Mai festival. Christopher Moulds conducted the opera by Claudio Monteverdi, which was combined with a play by Joan Didion. The production was directed by Christopher Rüping.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

On April 17 and 18, Robert Jindra conducted the Bayerisches Staatsorchester at the 5th Academy Concert. During the Mozart program, Hanna-Elisabeth Müller also took the stage for the concert aria “Bella mia fiamma” – “Resta, o cara”.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Moritz Winker would have become a pilot if he had taken a different career path. Now his favorite place at the opera is outside the orchestra pit with the stage manager: “What they do every night is just brilliant!”. The movie that always makes him laugh out loud is Welcome to the Sticks.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

The Bayerisches Staatsorchester, together with its General Music Director Vladimir Jurowski, was a guest at the Isarphilharmonie on March 25. Renaud Capuçon joined the orchestra on stage for Alban Berg’s violin concerto Dem Andenken eines Engels, before Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 was heard.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

“The early bird gets the worm” is his favorite saying, and one of his favorite composers is Franz Schubert. Michael Arlt hails from Thuringia, where the bratwursts are definitely better than in Munich.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

“To be modern means to admit that in a short time one will no longer be modern.” – This saying comes from the text Modernity, published in 1918, whose author Felix Weingartner spoke out against a linear development of music history that was constantly outdone by new forms and modes of expression. Thus, in his notes on his life, he sometimes self-deprecatingly referred to himself as a “Wagnerian” and a “Lisztian” and at another point proclaimed the paradoxical thrust “forward to Mozart!”. Weingartner, whose death anniversary was on May 7, 2022, the 80th time, completed 10 operas, 7 symphonies, several songs and chamber music and participated with numerous books and essays in the music-aesthetic as well as theoretical and performance-practical discourse of his time. His success was based on his activity as a conductor. In his letters to his “dearest friend,” as he usually addressed Weingartner, Gustav Mahler did not hold back with praise: “I know of no one to whom I would hand over my work with such confidence and joyful courage as to you.” Weingartner succeeded Mahler as opera director of the Vienna Court Opera, having previously been Kapellmeister of several opera houses as well as chief conductor of the Munich Kaim Orchestra – today’s Munich Philharmonic. During his 19-year association with the Vienna Philharmonic, Weingartner made a decisive contribution to its worldwide fame. As a subscription conductor, he led all concerts, including the first Beethoven cycle in 1918 and the first South American tour in the orchestra’s history in 1922. His opera Malawika, a “Comedy in Three Acts,” premiered at the Munich National Theatre on June 3, 1886, when the composer was just 23 years old. He wrote the libretto himself, based on a drama by the Indian poet Kalidasa.

Photo Credit: Archiv Bayerische Staatsoper

Joseph Hartmann Stuntz was born in Arlesheim near Basel on July 23, 1793, and after receiving his first music lessons from his father, he composed a Te Deum for the Strasbourg Cathedral at the age of 14. He joined the Munich court orchestra in 1808 and studied with Peter von Winter, later also in Vienna with his teacher Antonio Salieri. From 1816 to 1818 Stuntz was Kapellmeister of the Italian Opera in Munich, and in the following years he composed several operas for the theaters in Venice, Milan and Turin. At the Teatro alla Scala, his opera La rappressaglia was so successful that he was awarded the title “maestro di cartello.” In 1823 Stuntz became Vice-Kapellmeister of the Munich Hofkapelle and in 1825 first Hofkapellmeister, succeeding Peter von Winter. As the “national composer and festive conductor” of Bavaria, Stuntz’s music was played at major inauguration ceremonies – for example, the opening of the Valhalla or the laying of the foundation stone of the Befreiungshalle and the unveiling of the Bavaria. He is also considered the founder of male choral singing in Munich. He died in Munich in 1859.

Photo credit: Etching by Joseph Hartmann Stuntz circa 1830. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Ausstellungskataloge, 38.

On May 14, the Munich Opera Horns will perform an eclectic program of music for horn from the last five centuries. Ludwig Senfl, with whose permanent appointment in 1523 by Duke Wilhelm IV in Munich the history of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester can be traced, is represented as well as his successor Orlando di Lasso. Original compositions for horn by Anton Reicha and perhaps the most famous horn player in the long tradition of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, Franz Strauss, are performed alongside arrangements for the instrument – for example, the ballet music from Mozart’s opera Idomeneo.

The program of the 6th Academy Concert, conducted by the General Music Director of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester Vladimir Jurowski, will open with an English rarity rarely heard on the continent, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis: a precious piece that blends memory and the present in an enchanting way – presented by the strings of the Staatsorchester. Later on, two soloists can be expected: Gerhard Oppitz takes the solo part in Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto, which Schumann originally composed for his wife Clara, who also played the piano part at the premiere. For Gustav Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, soprano Louise Alder joins the orchestra.

Photo creddit: Franz von Lenbach: Clara Schumann. https://androom.home.xs4all.nl/biography/a002056.htm

In her free time Anna-Maija Hirvonen is interested in philosophy, psychology, mysticism and spirituality. She especially enjoys vacationing in the Peruvian Amazon. There she has been able to make many discoveries concerning the greatest questions of humanity.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

On April 29th Stefan Ambrosius, Steffen Schmid and Simon Unseld played at the event “Tube-Trio: A tuba rarely comes alone” at KulturBunt Neuperlach as part of the event series “Celebrate!”

Peter von Winter was born in Mannheim on August 28, 1754, and began his career as a violinist in the court orchestra there, where he also played double bass in the meantime. During his participation in the orchestra, he became intensively acquainted with Italian and German opera before composing his own operas. In 1778 he moved to Munich when a large part of the Mannheim orchestra was called there. During a stay in Vienna, he studied for several months with Antonio Salieri, and in 1787 he was appointed vice kapellmeister of the Munich court orchestra, then kapellmeister in 1798, when he directed mainly church music and Italian opera. His own operas were celebrated at that time in Naples, Venice and Vienna, later also in London. Together with Emanuel Schikaneder, the librettist of The Magic Flute, Winter created a sequel to Mozart’s popular opera entitled The Labyrinth or The Struggle with the Elements. Mozart himself, however, referred to Winter as his “greatest enemy” in a letter to his father in 1781. Along with Carl Maria von Weber, Peter von Winter’s Singspiele were significant pioneering works in the field of German opera before Richard Wagner. In addition, in 1811 Winter, together with members of the Munich Hofkapelle, was involved in the founding of the Musikalische Akademie: the Munich Concert Association, which still exists today. Winter worked in Munich until his death in 1825.

Image credit: Johann Nepomuk Haller, The Composer and Kapellmeister Peter von Winter (1754-1825), 1825, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen - Neue Pinakothek Munich, URL: https://www.sammlung.pinakothek.de/de/artwork/ZKGPvAyxgA

After the performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream on April 1 at the National Theatre, the fifth event of the series “Encounters” took place. The audience met musicians of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester in the Rheingoldbar.

On March 12, the 4th chamber concert of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester took place in the Allerheiligen Hofkirche. Markus Wolf, So-Young Kim, Adrian Mustea, Emanuel Graf, Carlos Vera Larrucea and Julian Riem played music by Richard Strauss, Karl Amadeus Hartmann as well as Hans Pfitzner. The photos show impressions from the rehearsals.

Frank Bloedhorn, trumpeter of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, about the Aida trumpets, which are used in our new production Aida. Here you can find out why this instrument has such a special and long history.

for 3rd and 4th grade students

MUSICAL ACADEMY – DACAPO

DACAPO is the music education project of the Musikalische Akademie des Bayerischen Staatsorchesters e. V. It was developed by musicians of the orchestra for a 3rd and a 4th grade class at elementary schools in the Munich area. Within a few weeks, musicians visit the selected classes of the school. In workshops they present their instruments and their profession. The final event is a concert for all students at the school, if possible. DACAPO combines the encounter with artists as well as getting to know and trying out orchestral instruments in the workshops with the experience of a concert situation.

Applications for the DACAPO project are sent through the Bavarian State Opera’s school program to jugend@staatsoper.de.
With the kind support of the Friends and Sponsors of the
Musical Academy of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester
Munich e.V.

for 3rd and 4th grade students

The violinist, Kapellmeister and composer Paul Grua was born in Mannheim on February 1, 1753 and received his musical training from his father Carlo Pietragrua, who as Kapellmeister at the Electoral Palatinate Court under the Electors Carl Philipp and Carl Theodor had been responsible for all areas of court music. Paul Pietragrua worked in the Mannheim court orchestra before being sent to study in Bologna and Parma in 1777. After the Mannheim court moved to Munich, Paul Pietragrua was appointed vice kapellmeister in 1779 before serving as Kapellmeister of vocal music at the Munich court from 1784. In 1780 Paul Pietragrua’s carnival opera Telemaco was premiered at the Cuvilliés Theatre in Munich, after which the composer concentrated on church music. He held his post of Kapellmeister in Munich until his death in 1833, a total of nearly half a century.

Photo credit: https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb00054636?page=6,7 Location: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek -- Slg.Her 1725

In her free time, Verena Kurz likes to go running or ride her road bike towards the mountains. For Verena Kurz, the best part of her job is experiencing everything live. The variety and spontaneity in the evening and the unbridled emotions on stage and in the pit are simply fun for her.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Hans Werner Henze’s opera in three acts Elegie für junge Liebende was premiered on May 20, 1961, at the Schlosstheater in Schwetzingen by the ensemble of the Bavarian State Opera. The opera was commissioned by the Süddeutscher Rundfunk for the Schwetzingen Festival, and Henze approached librettists Wystan Hugh Auden and Chester Simon Kallman with the idea of “a psychologically highly nuanced chamber opera”. A German translation of the libretto was prepared by Ludwig Landgraf with the collaboration of Werner Schachteli and the composer. The action is set in the Austrian Alps in 1910, more precisely in the mountain inn “Schwarzer Adler”. At the center are the two young lovers Toni Reischmann and Elisabeth Zimmer, whose tragic death together in a snowstorm serves as material for the jealous poet Gregor Mittenhofer’s poem “Elegy for Young Lovers”. The music is characterized by a transparent and differentiated sound as well as by reminiscences of Italian opera and Schoenbergian Sprechgesang. The premiere, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Mittenhofer and Heinrich Bender as conductor, in a set by Helmut Jürgens, was praised as Henze’s “breakthrough to a musical language of his own”.

Photo credit: Archive Bavarian State Opera

Markus Kern likes boating in his spare time and his favorite musician is Jessy Norman. If he hadn’t become a musician, Markus Kern would be working for the criminal police today.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Traudi Pauer loves to travel to Rome, but her favorite composer is not Italian: it is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Photo credit: Isolde Lehrmann

Andrea Bernasconi was probably born in 1706 in Marseille and composed several operas before coming to Munich. He also worked in Venice at the Ospedale della Pietà as “maestro di capella”. In 1753 he was appointed vice kapellmeister at the Munich court by the Elector Maximilian III Joseph in Munich, to whom he also gave music lessons. After the death of the Hofkapellmeister Giovanni Porta, Bernasconi took over his position in 1755. Bernasconi’s operas were performed in numerous European cities, but most of them in Munich: for example, La clemenza di Tito in 1768, before Mozart was to compose an opera of the same name, or Agelmondo in 1760 and Demetrio in 1772. Bernasconi remained in office until his death in Munich in 1784.

Image credit: From Pietro Metastasio, Andrea Bernasconi – Demetrio. Location: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek -- Bavar. 4015-4,1/4 http://www.mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn=urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10381988-6,

Giovanni Porta was born around 1675 in Venice, where he was a pupil of Francesco Gasparini, before working at the court of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni in Rome between 1706 and 1710. Other places of activity were in Vicenza and Verona and at the Conservatorio della Pietà under Antonio Vivaldi. From 1716 he devoted himself mainly to the composition of operas and sacred works. From 1726 to 1737 he was “maestro di coro” at the Ospedale della Pietà as a colleague of Vivaldi. In 1737, after the death of Pietro Torri, he took over his position as Kapellmeister at the Munich court. Porta died in Munich in 1755.

Image credit: By Heinrich Eduard Winter - This image is from the Gallica Digital Library and is available under ID btv1b8423665z, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13401583

for 3rd and 4th grade students

MUSICAL ACADEMY – DACAPO

DACAPO is the music education project of the Musikalische Akademie des Bayerischen Staatsorchesters e. V. It was developed by musicians of the orchestra for a 3rd and a 4th grade class at elementary schools in the Munich area. Within a few weeks, musicians visit the selected classes of the school. In workshops they present their instruments and their profession. The final event is a concert for all students at the school, if possible. DACAPO combines the encounter with artists as well as getting to know and trying out orchestral instruments in the workshops with the experience of a concert situation.

Applications for the DACAPO project are sent through the Bavarian State Opera’s school program to jugend@staatsoper.de.
With the kind support of the Friends and Sponsors of the
Musical Academy of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester
Munich e.V.

for 3rd and 4th grade students

Photo creddit: Ars Produktion https://www.ars-produktion.de/Pietro_Torrica1650_1737_La_Baviera/topic/SACDs/shop_art_id/132/tpl/shop_article_detail

The singer, composer and organist Pietro Torri was born around 1650 in Peschiera del Garda. He was organist and Kapellmeister at the court of the Margrave of Bayreuth, before serving as organist at the court of Elector Max Emanuel in Munich from 1689. When the latter was appointed governor of the Spanish Netherlands, Torri followed the Elector to Brussels in 1692, where he took up the post of “maître de chapelle” in the Brussels court orchestra and conducted the opera performances. After a change of power, Max Emanuel returned to Munich in 1701, where Torri served for the time being as chamber music director, since the office of court conductor was still held by Giuseppe Antonio Bernabei. During the War of the Spanish Succession, the Elector resided again in Brussels from 1704 to 1714, where Torri also followed him. Back in Munich, Torri held the title of court conductor in 1715 until he was finally appointed court conductor in 1732 after Bernabei’s death. Torri died in Munich in 1737. He left behind masses and other liturgical forms, oratorios, cantatas, and numerous operas, most of which were premiered in Munich.

There exists a CD recording of selected works by Torri by Christoph Hammer and the Neue Hofkapelle Munich: https://www.amazon.de/Baviera-Neue-Hofkapelle-München/dp/B00011MK38

Photo creddit: Ars Produktion https://www.ars-produktion.de/Pietro_Torrica1650_1737_La_Baviera/topic/SACDs/shop_art_id/132/tpl/shop_article_detail

After the performance of Die Teufel von Loudun on March 11 at the National Theatre, the fourth event of the series “Encounters” took place. The audience met musicians of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester in the Rheingoldbar.

The picture book by Rolf Fänger and Ulrike Möltgen tells of friendship, owning, sharing and letting go. The music spans from well-known repertoire of opera history to works by the contemporary composer Richard Whilds. At the same time, the world of opera is opened up to the youngest audience members through a touching story. The dramaturge of the Bavarian State Opera, Malte Krasting, created the concept based on the children’s book Der kleine Mondbär (“The Little Moon Bear”) together with Catherine Leiter, who has been responsible for the Kind & Co section since the 2021/22 season. On April 28, Der Mondbär was now released as a radio play with music for children.

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After the performance of Manon Lescaut on February 25 at the National Theatre, the third event of the series “Encounters” took place. The audience met musicians of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester in the Rheingoldbar.

The Bayerisches Staatsorchester is celebrating its five-hundredth birthday this year, and Munich is joining in – not only with numerous concerts and events at the National Theatre, but also with festivals throughout the city. A very special instrument is coming to KulturBunt Neuperlach, namely the tuba: it is the deepest of all brass instruments. In the orchestra pit, it is usually found hidden next to the timpani, and tuba players are used to playing their part all alone in the orchestra. The three tuba players of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester – Stefan Ambrosius, Steffen Schmid and Simon Unseld – now want to change this fact. They are stepping out of the orchestra pit and want to play together. To this end, they have joined forces and will present a colorful program with music of all kinds – from baroque to jazz. Look forward to varied music with coffee and cake in the context of a guest café special of Kulturraum München e.V. and get to know the tuba better.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

The 5th Chamber Concert focuses on Heinrich Joseph Baermann, extraordinary clarinet virtuoso of his time, who inspired composers such as Giacomo Meyerbeer, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Carl Maria von Weber to write compositions for the clarinet. Baermann was born in Potsdam in 1784 and was educated there and in Berlin before serving as a military musician during the fighting between Napoleon and Prussia. In 1807, Baermann was accepted as first clarinetist in the Munich court orchestra, where he served until 1834. Baermann was in demand internationally and gave concerts in many European cities before his death in Munich in 1847.

All of the works on the program are related to Baermann: Meyerbeer’s 2nd Clarinet Quintet, for example, was considered lost since World War II until a score copy of it was discovered in Baermann’s estate. During a visit of Heinrich Baermann together with his son Carl to Mendelssohn during a concert tour in Berlin, Mendelssohn composed the Concert Piece No. 1 while Baermann was cooking. And Baermann was also friends with Carl Maria von Weber – the two performed concerts together, and Weber dedicated his clarinet compositions to Baermann.

Photo credit: Print, author unknown, 1829, Munich City Museum, Portrait Collection; Inv: G M IV/873, Public Domain Mark.01

After the performance of Dido and Aeneas … Erwartung on February 4 at the National Theatre, the second event of the series “Encounters” took place. The audience met musicians of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester in the Rheingoldbar.

DACAPO is the music education project of the Musikalische Akademie des Bayerischen Staatsorchesters e. V. It was developed by musicians of the orchestra for a 3rd and a 4th grade class at elementary schools in the Munich area. Within a few weeks, musicians visit the selected classes of the school. In workshops they present their instruments and their profession. The final event is a concert for all students at the school, if possible. DACAPO combines the encounter with artists as well as getting to know and trying out orchestral instruments in the workshops with the experience of a concert situation.

Applications for the DACAPO project are sent through the Bavarian State Opera’s school program to jugend@staatsoper.de.
With the kind support of the Friends and Sponsors of the
Musical Academy of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester
Munich e.V.

for 3rd and 4th grade students

On March 20, the young talents of the Hermann Levi Academy presented themselves at a concert in the Alte Pinakothek.

The son of Ercole Bernabeis was born in Rome in 1649 and received his musical training from his father, who he succeeded as kapellmeister at San Luigi dei Francesi in 1672. He was ordained a priest before moving to Munich, where he was appointed vice kapellmeister in 1677 and, after his father’s death in 1687, his position as Munich hofkapellmeister. Giuseppe Antonio stopped composing operas for Munich as early as 1690 and was able to concentrate entirely on court church music when court music director Pietro Torri took over the composition of operas and chamber music. In 1704 the court orchestra was temporarily dissolved when Bavaria was occupied by Austria, and in 1708 Giuseppe Antonio Bernabei was dismissed. In 1715 the Elector returned to Munich, and Bernabei was able to devote himself again to conducting church music as hofkapellmeister in Munich until his death in 1732.

Photo credit: Unknown painter 1700 – Giuseppe Antonio Bernabei. Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale, Bologna, Italy. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GA_BERNABEI.jpg

Kerll was born in 1627 in Adorf (today in the Vogtland district of Saxony) as the son of an organ builder, where he took up his first position as organist at St. Michael’s Church. He probably converted to Roman Catholicism in Vienna in the 1640s and went to Rome around 1648/49 to study with the composer Giacomo Carissimi. After the appointment of his brother Leopold Wilhelm as governor of the Netherlands by Emperor Ferdinand III. Johann Caspar became court organist in the Brussels residence. In 1655 the Brussels court was dissolved, and Kerll was appointed to the Munich court opera, where he was initially provisional vice-kapellmeister, then vice-kapellmeister and after the death of Giovanni Giacomo Porro finally in 1656 hofkapellmeister. Kerll took over the musical direction of the services, the chamber and table music as well as the court opera. Several of his operas were premiered in Munich. He resigned his post in 1673, probably as a result of intrigues by Italian musicians. In 1674 Kerll went to Vienna with his family, where he received a pension granted by the emperor and from 1677 worked as the court’s first organist. Nevertheless, he repeatedly visited Munich, for example in 1688 when the Munich engraver Carl Gustav Amling made the only known portrait of the composer. In 1692 Kerll gave up his post in Vienna to go to Munich, where he died on February 13, 1693 and was buried in the crypt of the Augustinian monastery on Kaufingerstrasse. During his lifetime, Kerll was considered the best-known German composer of operas and church music, and his works were performed internationally. He was equally famous as an organ improviser.

Photo credit: Engraving, Carl Gustav Amling, around 1680, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München, Inventar-Nr. 122532 D

Ercole Bernabei was born in 1622 in Caprarola, 57 kilometers northwest of Rome. In Rome he was from 1653 organist at San Luigi dei Francesi, from 1665 for two years conductor at the Lateran Basilica and from 1667 head of the chapel San Luigi dei Francesi. In 1672 he took up the position of Kapellmeister at St. Peter’s Church, which he gave up when he was called to Munich by the Bavarian Elector Ferdinand Maria. He was hofkapellmeister here from 1774 until his death in 1687. His works include numerous motets, cantatas and madrigals as well as several lost stage works that he wrote for Munich, possibly in the opera seria genre. In Munich, Bernabei was also commissioned by Elector Max Emanuel to train students from Bavarian monasteries and monasteries in composition.

Photo credit: By Heinrich Eduard Winter – This image comes from the Gallica Digital Library and is available under the ID btv1b8415785d, in the public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46619527

The 5th Academy Concert is dedicated to one of the so-called house gods of the Bavarian State Opera: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He probably composed his Concerto for Flute and Harp in April 1778 in Paris as a commission for the flute-playing Comte de Guines and his daughter, who played the harp. The work has not been performed at the Musikalische Akademie since 1906; at that time with Leonore Kennerknecht-Buff on the harp (see tile “Women in the Orchestra”). In the same month, Mozart wrote to his father about the composition of a “sinfonie concertante”, the original score of which is said to have been lost. The Sinfonia Concertante for winds has long been thought to be an arrangement of the lost piece, but some scholars now doubt that Mozart was the author of this work.

In Prague, Mozart composed the aria “Bella mia fiamma” for the singer Josepha Duschek while he was there in November 1787 to prepare for the premiere of Don Giovanni. Just two months later, the composer himself conducted the premiere of his Symphony No. 38, nicknamed the “Prague Symphony”, on January 19, 1787 in Prague. The conductor of the 5th Academy Concert Robert Jindra himself comes from Prague, where he studied opera singing and conducting at the conservatory, and now holds the position of music director of the National Theater.

Photo credit: Prague around 1800 (anonymous etching)

Martina Beck-Stegemann, clarinetist of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, talks about the bass clarinet in A. It was built around 170 years ago by Mr Johann Simon Stengel, a clarinet maker from Bayreuth, and was probably played for the premiere of Tristan und Isolde in the National Theatre Munich. It is on loan from the Robert Schumann University in Düsseldorf.

In this video, Andreas Öttl, solo trumpeter of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, and Martin Lechner, instrument maker from Bischofshofen, show the wooden trumpet that was developed exclusively for the opera Tristan und Isolde in 1890.

For Clara Scholtes, the best thing about her job is arriving at the opera every day, preferably past the main entrance. Even when she’s in the best of moods, she always leaves the opera a little happier than when she arrived. Her favorite composers are Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach and Johannes Brahms, and her childhood hero is Pippi Longstocking, along the lines of “I’ve never tried this before, so I’m absolutely sure I can do it!”

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

For Anja Fabricius, the best thing about her job is the fact that she is allowed to create, and a special concert moment for her was the last Academy concert with Zubin Mehta. Everything about it was urgent. Anja Fabricius’ book recommendation is The German Lesson by Siegfried Lenz. Her childhood heroine is also from a book: Momo.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

The second Theme Concert concert took place on March 30, with members of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester and the mezzo-soprano Salome Kammer under the musical direction of Armando Merino playing music by Toshio Hosokawa and Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. multi. Marie-Claire Foblets gave a lecture on: Is diversity a threat to our democracy?

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Giovanni Giacomo Porro was born in Lugano around 1590 and worked, among other things, as organist for the Duke of Savoy Carlo Emanuele, as Kapellmeister at the Roman San Lorenzo in Damaso and as a substitute for the organ virtuoso Girolamo Frescobaldi at the Cappella Giulia. In 1635 he was appointed Kapellmeister to the court of Maximilian I in Munich. From there he made several trips to Italy to recruit Italian musicians for the Munich court orchestra. Porro used to be in regular contact with Galileo Galilei, by whom he set poems to music. Although no opera performance has survived under Porro’s direction, there are indications of him as a potential co-founder of the music-theatrical tradition in Munich. He worked here until his death in 1656. Almost all of his compositions, which were mostly of a sacred nature but also included madrigals and ballets, have been lost, according to a posthumous list of more than 1100 compositions.

Photo credit: By Domenico Tintoretto – http://collections.rmg.co.uk, public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=230541

The world premiere of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s two one-act plays Der Ring des Polykrates and Violanta took place on March 28, 1916 in Munich’s Hoftheater. The composer was 18 at the time and had already appeared as a child prodigy at the age of 13 with the world premiere of his ballet pantomime Der Schneemann at the Vienna Hofoper. Korngold had already completed his cheerful opera Der Ring des Polykrates in 1914, which was followed immediately by the composition of the tragic opera Violanta. The sensational success of Korngold’s opera Die tote Stadt finally followed in 1920, which last premiered at the Bavarian State Opera in 2019 and caused a sensation under the musical direction of Kirill Petrenko in a production by Simon Stone and with Jonas Kaufmann and Marlis Petersen in the leading roles. This spectacle was documented on DVD and Blu-ray on the in-house label Bayerische Staatsoper Recordings. Max Reinhardt brought Korngold to Hollywood in 1934, where the composer provided the music for 19 films and thus had a lasting influence on film music.

Photo credit: George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress) https://www.loc.gov/item/2005689510/

On April 1st at 6:00 p.m. in the Allerheiligen Hofkirche there will be a Passion Concert, which will be performed jointly by the Hermann Levi Academy and young talents from the Opera Studio of the Bavarian State Opera under the musical direction of Michael Pandya. Pieces from the two great oratorios St Matthew Passion and St John Passion as well as from the cantata Sehet! Wir gehn hinauf gen Jerusalem by Johann Sebastian Bach will be performed.

Photo credit: Magdalena Koenig

On March 26, the first Theme Concert took place in the Freiraum in Munich Hoch5, with members of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester playing music by Toshio Hosokawa and Olivier Messiaen and Dr. Lisa Suckert gave a lecture on the topic: The future doesn’t wait? Temporality in capitalism.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Yon Joo Kang would love to run a café if she weren’t making music because she loves baking and the smell of coffee; yoghurt is a must in her own fridge. If Yon Joo Kang had superpowers, she would like to be able to teleport to see her family in Korea at any time.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

At the beginning of April, the Bayerisches Staatsballett traditionally hosts its Ballet Festival Week. Founded in 1960 by then ballet director Heinz Rosen, the festival presents the highlights of the current season at the Nationaltheater between March 31 and April 8, 2023. It kicks off with the premiere evening Schmetterling, which features two works by the choreographer duo Sol León and Paul Lightfoot. In addition, there are the story ballets A Midsummer Night’s Dream by John Neumeier, Romeo and Juliet by John Cranko and Cinderella by Christopher Wheeldon. In addition, the ensemble once again brings the three-part evening Passages to the stage of the Nationaltheater with choreographies by David Dawson (Affairs of the Heart), Marco Goecke (Sweet Bones’ Melody) and Alexei Ratmansky (Pictures at an Exhibition). The junior ensembles perform again at the matinee of the Heinz Bosl Foundation.

Benedikt Don Strohmeier prefers to go on vacation where there is water, wind and, ideally, waves to be able to kitesurf well. He knew very early on that he wanted to be a musician, but at some point he had to decide whether it should be the cello or the piano. At that time he also made street music, for example on the final day of the 2002 World Cup. He sat down with his sister and friends in the old town in Regensburg and played the second movement of Haydn’s Kaiserquartett on a continuous loop. After about an hour and a half they had enough money to have a nice afternoon and evening.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

The composer Giovanni Battista Crivelli was born in Scandiano (province of Reggio Emilia) at the end of the 16th century and probably studied in the cathedral of Reggio Emilia, where he worked as organist from 1614. From 1620 he was Kapellmeister at the Chiesa dello Spirito Santo in Ferrara, and from 1629 he finally worked in Munich at the court of Maximilian I, where he conducted the Court Orchestra. From 1635 he worked in Reggio Emilia, where he was appointed conductor at the Basilica della Ghiara, and at Milan Cathedral and Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo. Crivelli held his last post as Kapellmeister of the court orchestra of the Duke of Modena, where he died in 1652. His compositions mainly include motets and madrigals.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons/Classe 3l, CC BY-SA 4.0,  commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Duomo_Di_Reggio_Emilia,_Facciata.jpg

Lead violinist So-Young Kim introduces herself and talks about the 2017 Asia Tour.

Watch full video here

Cellist Rupert Buchner introduces himself and talks about the 2017 Asia Tour.

Watch full video here.

Harpenist Gaël Gandino introduces herself and talks about the 2017 Asia Tour.

Watch full video here. 

Percussionist Thomas März introduces himself and talks about the 2017 Asia Tour.

Watch full video here.

In this video the viola players Wiebke Heidemeier und Clemens Gordon introduce themselves and talk about the 2017 Asia Tour.

Watch full video here.

The third Theme Concert will take place on March 31 at 7:00 p.m. in the Scholastikahaus (Ledererstraße 5, 80331 Munich). The motto of this year’s series is: Waiting to see you again – What do we hold on to in the course of time? New encounters with old problems.

Prof Dr Dr h.c. Christoph Engel, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn, gives a lecture on the subject: I don’t even want to know that.

For Immanuel Kant there was no doubt: “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-inflicted immaturity.” But does the patient become guilty who does not want to know his diagnosis? Or the spouse who doesn’t want to know if he’s being cheated on? Or the liberators who wrap the cloak of silence around the misdeeds of the old regime? Or the company that doesn’t keep track of the attendance of its employees? How is the conscious decision not to want to know something to be evaluated? And how to protect the legitimate desire to remain unenlightened?

Members of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester perform Isang Yun’s Gasa (1963) for violin and piano, two compositions by Toshio Hosokawa (_Memory_. In Memory of Isang Yun for piano trio and Vertical Time Study III for violin and piano) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Trio No. 2 B-major KV 502. Japan’s most-performed composer Toshio Hosokawa is a constant at this year’s Theme Concerts, whose music enters into dialogue with a composition by his composition teacher Isang Yun: Gasa can be translated as “song words” and comes as a narrative song from the Korean tradition.

In cooperation with the Max Planck Society

Photo credit: Pietro Bucciarelli / Connected Archives

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

The boundary between dream and reality increasingly dissolves as Paul, mourning his dead wife Marie, meets the dancer Marietta. With her looks so similar to Marie’s, Marietta becomes the object of the projection of Paul’s erotic desires. His grief has the traits of a ritual: The carefully composed strands of his dead wife’s hair are guarded like a relic. Following a nerve-racking “vision” with cathartic effect, Paul is finally reeled back to reality. He can leave the Belgian city of Bruges as the place of his death cult. The original title of the piece, “Triumph des Lebens” (Triumph of Life), is symbolic of the main character’s personal development.

Just a few weeks before the immensely successful world premiere of Die tote Stadt, none other than Giacomo Puccini himself described Erich Wolfgang Korngold, only 23 at the time, as the “greatest hope of new German music”. Because of their melodic urgency, arias such as “Glück, das mir verblieb” (Marietta’s Lute Song) and “Mein Sehnen, mein Wähnen” (Pierrot’s Song) have found a home among the concert repertoires of numerous opera singers and radiate far beyond the fame of Die tote Stadt.

The premiere of Korngold’s Die tote Stadt at the Bavarian State Opera in autumn 2019 was praised by press and audience alike. Experience the Bayerisches Staatsorchester under Kirill Petrenko as well as Marlis Petersen (Marie / Marietta) and Jonas Kaufmann (Paul) in the main roles of this intensive and stirring production by Simon Stone on DVD or Blu-ray. Winner of the Gramophone Music Awards in the categories Opera and Recordings of the Year:

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Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

The second Theme Concert will take place March 30 at 7:00 p.m. in the Brainlab (Olof-Palme-Straße 9, 81829 Munich-Riem). The motto of this year’s series is: Waiting to see you again – What do we hold on to in the course of time? New encounters with old problems.

Prof Dr Dr h.c. multi. Marie-Claire Foblets, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale) will give a lecture on the topic: Does diversity threaten our democracy?The project of a democratic, liberal, open and pluralistic society is an ambitious and at the same time difficult project, the implementation of which is accompanied by conflicts of interests and values. Opinions vary widely on the degree of openness and respect due to different ways of life and philosophical or religious beliefs, as illustrated by examples from legal practice across the EU, where not only courts but also administrations and legislators deal with issues of see diversity confronted, is illustrated. With a bit of creativity, sensible solutions can be found, but they differ depending on the constitutional framework of the respective country.

Members of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester perform two compositions by Toshio Hosokawa: A Song from far away – In Nomine - for 6 players (2001) and The Raven, a monodrama for mezzo-soprano and 12 players (2011/12), based on the poem of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe. Armando Merino is the musical director of the latter part of the programme, and Salome Kammer takes on the singing part. Hosokawa’s A Song from Far Away was commissioned for the Witten Festival for New Chamber Music, when the program focused on “In nomine” compositions whose tradition goes back to John Taverner’s six-part mass Gloria tibi Trinitas. Most recently, Arnold Schönberg’s monodrama Erwartung could be experienced on the big stage of the National Theatre, so now a contemporary work of this genre in the Brainlab: In The Raven the discrepancy between forgetting and remembering is addressed, with a mezzo-soprano singing the inner voice of a woman, the voice of the raven and the narrator. Musically, an eerie and mysterious mood prevails.

In cooperation with the Max Planck Society

Photo credit: Pietro Bucciarelli / Connected Archives

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Since May 2021, the Bayerische Staatsoper has been documenting its excellence, versatility and tradition with a new in-house label: Bayerische Staatsoper Recordings.

Discover selected opera productions and concert recordings as well as important archive recordings on CD or DVD/BD under the new label of the Bavarian State Opera: BSOrec. Productions from the children’s and youth program KIND & CO as well as chamber music editions, which are intended to provide a platform for first-class ensembles of the Bavarian State Orchestra, complete the label’s range.

Shortly after it was founded, the label was also able to look forward to special awards, for example at the Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2022: Kirill Petrenko and the Bayerisches Staatsorchester won the award in the category orchestral recordings with their recording of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 7, Hans Abrahamsen’s The Snow Queenwas honored in the Contemporary category, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt received two awards: the Opera category and the coveted award “Recording of the Year”. Most recently, our in-house label won the “Video: Opera” category at the 2023 International Classical Music Awards with the release The Snow Queen, directed by Kirill Petrenko.

More about the label and previous releases:https://www.staatsoper.de/recordings

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

The first theme concert will take place March 26 at 7:00 p.m. in the Freiraum in Munich High 5 (Werksviertel, Atelierstraße 10, 81671 Munich). The motto of this year’s series is: Waiting to see you again – What do we hold on to in the course of time? New encounters with old problems.

Dr Lisa Suckert, research associate at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, will give a lecture on the topic: The future won’t wait? Temporality in capitalism.

Capitalism is not only an economic order and a regime of production, but also involves a specific temporal order. Acceleration and future orientation play a special role in this, but also waiting practices, unequal temporal autonomy and a bureaucratic enclosure of the future. Along with the peculiarities of our current capitalist order of time, its attractiveness but also its numerous paradoxes and fractures become clear.

Members of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester play Toshio Hosokawa’s Hour flowers. Hommage à Olivier Messiaen (2008) for clarinet, violin, cello and piano and Olivier Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps for clarinet, violin, cello and piano. Hosokawa is considered to be the best-known and most-performed composer in Japan today, whose musical language oscillates between Western avant-garde and traditional Japanese art forms. His work Hourly Flowers was written on the occasion of the 100th birthday of the French composer Olivier Messiaen, whose famous chamber music work Quatuor pour la fin du temps is also used for the composition of the Hourly Flowers. Messiaen completed his “Quartet for the End of Time” in a Nazi prisoner of war camp, where it premiered in 1941.

In cooperation with the Max Planck Society

Photo credit: Pietro Bucciarelli / Connected Archives

On March 25, the Bayerisches Staatsorchester will play under its general music director Vladimir Jurowski in the Isarphilharmonie, the Munich concert hall that only opened in October 2021 and can accommodate almost 2,000 guests. Renaud Capuçon will perform Alban Berg’s violin concerto In Memory of an Angel. The dedication refers to Manon Gropius – daughter of Gustav Mahler’s widow Alma from her first marriage to the architect Walter Gropius – who died at the tender age of 18 from complications of polio. Alban Berg used the twelve-tone technique of his teacher Arnold Schönberg for this, allowing himself a few compositional liberties. Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4, also known as the “Romantic”, was premiered in Vienna in 1881 and was performed nine years later at the Musikalische Akademie under Franz Fischer after the General Music Director Hermann Levi fell ill. The latter was very committed to Bruckner’s music, for example by contributing to the printing costs of the fourth symphony, so that Bruckner, enthusiastic with gratitude, spoke of Munich as his “artistic home” in a letter to Levi.

Photo credit: © Isarphilharmonie im Gasteig HP8

Hornist Milena Viotti introduces herself and talks about the 2017 Asia Tour.

Watch full video here.

The Hermann Levi Academy supports talented young musicians by giving them the opportunity to practice with the orchestra under professional conditions, discovering  opera literature with its specific requirements as well as symphonic music.

The Bayerisches Staatsorchester’s Hermann Levi Academy was originally founded in 2002 under the name “Orchestra Academy of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester”. Its task was to pass on the traditions of one of the oldest German orchestras to young musicians and consequently keep this particularly special sound and performance culture alive for subsequent generations. Since July 2021, the Orchestra Academy has included the “Hermann Levi Academy” title in its name to honour Hermann Levi’s importance in the world of music and in particular his forward-looking creativity at the National Theatre in Munich.

On March 20th, the Hermann Levi Academy will present itself in the Alte Pinakothek, playing Ludwig van Beethoven’s Trio op. 78, arranged for horn, trumpet and trombone, the wind quintet in C major op. 79 by August Klughardt, the fantasy C minor for harp solo op. 35 by Ludwig Spohr and Beethoven’s string quartet in C minor op. 18 no. 4.

Photo credit: Frank Bloedhorn

Although Orlando di Lasso was the most famous offspring of his family, he was not the only composer and musician closely connected with the history of the Munich court orchestra. Because after his son Ferdinand I di Lasso, his son Ferdinand II di Lasso was also court music director in Munich: probably between 1616 and 1629 Ferdinand II conducted the orchestra of Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria. A letter dated July 24, 1613 shows how intensively Maximilian I himself dealt with cultural policy. It shows that the Duke had sent Ferdinand II to Rome so that he could study there. Maximilian I was closely informed about the progress of Orlando di Lasso’s grandson, and so he wrote to Rome:

“From your letter of the 6th I have learned what progress Ferdinando Lasso is making in music there, and that he is now able to return and render services as soon as he will have stayed in Rome for three more months to write allegro compositions in a modern style, having hitherto engaged in serious ones. I can therefore tell you that I am content to leave him there for the three months mentioned, so that he can try to perfect himself as much as possible, not only in composing, but also in practicing and putting together concerts for two, three or more choirs. Then let him come back here.”

Photo credit: Wenceslaus Hollar: Maximilian I. als Herrscher. University of Toronto Wenceslaus Hollar Digital Collection. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_I._(Bayern)#/media/Datei:Wenceslas_Hollar_-_Compton_or_Carleton._Philosophia_universa_(State_4).jpg

More about Leonore Buff: https://www.sophie-drinker-institut.de/buff-leonore

Photo credit: Archive of the Musikalische Akademie

Today, the proportion of women in the Bayerisches Staatsorchester is over a third. That wasn’t always the case: in the photo from 1911, the only female member of the Musikalische Akademie can be seen in the first row, namely the harpist Leonore Kennerknecht-Buff. She was said to be related to Charlotte Kestner (born Buff), who went down in literary history as the historical role model of Lotte in Goethe’s epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. In 1892, Buff was accepted as a member of the Bayerisches Hoforchester, which later became the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. Other orchestras took much longer to take this step: while the Berlin Philharmonic accepted the first woman as an orchestra member in 1982, the Vienna Philharmonic only followed suit in 1997.

More about women in orchestras: https://www.kulturrat.de/themen/frauen-in-kultur-medien/beitraege-publikationen/gendersrecht-in-berufsorchestern/

More about Leonore Buff: https://www.sophie-drinker-institut.de/buff-leonore

Photo credit: Archive of the Musikalische Akademie

At the age of 23 Richard Strauss was Kapellmeister in Meiningen; during this time he composed the Sonata in E flat major for violin and piano op. 18, in which the musical influence of Johannes Brahms, 31 years older, can be felt. Karl Amadeus Hartmann himself named “Strauss’s Salome und Elektra” as the central influence of his first compositions. Hartmann founded the Munich concert series musica viva, and some of his early works were premiered at the Bavarian State Opera, where he even worked as dramaturge from 1945. In his 1932 Little Concerto for string quartet and percussion, the percussion enriches the string ensemble with unusual timbres. Two months before the premiere of Hans Pfitzner’s opera Palestrina, Thomas Mann expressed his anticipation in a letter to the composer, because “it will mean an apotheosis of the music itself, nothing less”. Before that premiere in 1917 was actually to become Pfitzner’s triumph in Munich, he composed his piano quintet op. 23. It was first performed in 1908 and was dedicated to Bruno Walter, who later became General Music Director of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester.

Photo credit: Magdalena König

About the Hofbräuhaus in München: https://www.hofbraeuhaus.de/bierzeichen/

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

The Staatliches Hofbräuhaus brewery in Munich preserves the tradition of beer symbols, also known as beer marks: since the 19th century they have served as a calculating aid and have been part of almost every brewery for a long time; first made of brass, then aluminium, later made of plastic, in the post-war years after the Second World War also in the form of paper notes. Each brand has a specific value, for example “1 Maß light or dark” or “Good for 1 liter of beer”. In the Hofbräuhaus am Platzl, beer tokens can be purchased that keep the value of a beer, even if the prices on the drinks menu go up. Now there is also a beer sign from the Hofbräuhaus in honor of the 500th anniversary of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester.

Worth knowing about the beer brand: https://www.historisches-unterfranken.uni-wuerzburg.de/db/biermarken/biermarken/aufsatz.php

About the Hofbräuhaus in München: https://www.hofbraeuhaus.de/bierzeichen/

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

On March 5th, Sergei Prokofiev’s opera War and Peace premiered at the National Theatre in a production by Dmitri Tcherniakov. The general music director Vladimir Jurowski conducted the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, the Bayerische Staatsoper Chorus and the additional choir of the Bayerische Staatsoper. The opera also requires a huge ensemble of singers to embody the numerous roles.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

The son of Orlando di Lasso was born in Munich around 1562 and trained by his father in the court orchestra. In 1585 he was employed as Kapellmeister at the court in Hechingen, and in 1587 a collection of motets by Ferdinand I di Lasso was published, which was dedicated to his employer Eitel Friedrich IV von Hohenzollern-Hechingen. In 1589 he returned to Munich and worked as a tenor singer there and in Landshut before he succeeded Johannes de Fossa as Kapellmeister to Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria in 1602. In 1622 he initiated the publication of the collection Apparatus musicus with eight-part works by his father. In 1609 Ferdinand I di Lasso died in Munich. The Cantiones Quinque Vocum in the cover picture is an edition published in 1597 of previously unpublished motets by his father and Ferdinand I.

Photo credit: Lasso, Orlando di: Cantiones quinque vocum. Ab Orlando di Lasso et huius filio Ferdinando di Lasso. Compositae Typis iam primo subiectae et in lucem editae. Location: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek -- 4 Mus.pr. 164. https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb00072000?page=2,3

Miriam Noa from the Munich City Museum and the two solo drummers from the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, Pieter Roijen and Ernst-Wilhelm Hilgers, will be showing an instrument that was used in Munich premieres of Richard Wagner’s operas.

In this video, Claudio Estay informs about the Strohfiedel, a special xylophone that is still used during performances of Richard Strauss’ Salome by the Bayerisches Staatsorchester.

Christoph Bachhuber likes to travel to Italy and Greece, and his favorite composers are Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giacomo Puccini. He also had his most beautiful opera moment with Puccini’s Tosca: the vocal power of an abysmal evil Scarpia, the opera choir and the unbelievable power and volume of the last bars of the orchestra at the end of the first act gave him goosebumps when he heard that sat in the orchestra pit at this opera for the first time.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Consisting of members of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, the Munich Schumann Quartet performed Béla Bartók’s early piano quintet and Arnold Schönberg’s 2nd string quartet with soprano in 1994, the year it was founded. Since then, invitations to concert tours and festivals in Europe, Japan and the USA have followed. The close cooperation with singers and composers enables the ensemble to perform rarely heard works as well as world premieres and experimental pieces in addition to the widely diversified common quartet repertoire, which combine video and language arts beyond pure tonal language. The first violinist Barbara Burgdorf is concert master of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. Traudi Pauer has been playing here since 1996. Stephan Finkentey has been deputy principal violist since 1988, and one year later Oliver Göske joined the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. For the Schumann Year 2010, the quartet recorded two double CDs, which are available in stores or via http://www.schumann-quartett.de .

Photo credit: Archive Musikalische Akademiee

In her free time, Isolde Lehrmann likes to photograph still lifes and portraits.

Photo credits: Wilfried Hösl

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

On February 22, 2010, The Tragedy of the Devil by Hungarian composer Peter Eötvös was premiered with a libretto by Albert Ostermaier in the National Theatre. Eötvös himself conducted the Bavarian State Orchestra. The Ukrainian artist couple Ilya and Emilia Kabakov designed the stage and Balázs Kovalik directed. Find out more about the work and the staging of that time in a contribution with Eötvös, Kovalik, Ostermaier and the Lucifer singer of the premiere Georg Nigl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MylAsq5_dy0

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Yukino Thompson loves spending time in her native Okinawa, Japan, a tropical island with beautiful turquoise sea and lots of sun! In her opinion, the tones Bb and Eb sound best on her instrument, because they usually sound dark and warm.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Johannes de Fossa’s date and place of birth are unknown. Up until his entry into the Munich court orchestra in 1569, de Fossa’s biography is documented incompletely. He probably comes from a Dutch family of musicians, in which his name appeared several times. In a copy he made himself, de Fossa referred to the composer Johannes Castileti – also known as Jean Guyot – as his teacher. De Fossa was probably Castileti’s pupil in the 1540s and 1550s in Liège. In 1569, de Fossa was finally appointed Vice Kapellmeister of the Munich court orchestra and held this office until Orlando di Lasso’s death in 1594. After di Lasso’s death, di Fossa took over his position as Munich court music director, although the official appointment did not take place until 1597. His merits were honored by de Fossa’s elevation to the imperial nobility. He died in Munich at Pentecost 1603, having had to resign from office a year earlier due to health problems.

Photo credit: Fossa, Johannes de: 7 Sacred songs – BSB Mus.ms. 2757. Location: Munich, Bavarian State Library Mus.ms. 2757. https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb00079000?page=6

Photo credit: Archive of the Musikalische Akademie

Steffen Schmid’s favorite composer is Richard Strauss: “His works are phenomenally orchestrated. Even after around a hundred years, one has the feeling that Strauss knew exactly what he could ‘demand’ from every instrument. In addition, melodies to kneel down over and over again – simply sensational.” The biggest cliché about his group of instruments is probably that they are always in the canteen. However, this is also where you meet Steffen Schmid most often.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Great rejoicing after the 4th Academy Concert for the Bayerische Staatsorchester, its former general music director Zubin Mehta, the violinist Vilde Frang and the composer Minas Borboudakis.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

On January 8th, the anniversary year of the Bayerische Staatsorchester got off to a brilliant start with a concert in the Nationaltheater. General music director Vladimir Jurowski conducted. The invited guests included Ilse Aigner, President of the State Parliament, and Markus Blume, Bavarian Minister of State for Science and Art, who both gave speeches.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Photo credit: © EVISCO

Unique in its kind, OPERcussion, the virtuoso percussion quintet, brings the art of percussion from the depths of the orchestra pit to the front row, realizing a new model of artistic creation while respecting history and championing innovation.

When we study the history of the Bayerische Staatsoper, we learn that the first timpanist with a contract began in 1600 in what was then the Court Orchestra. In more than 400 years of musical tradition, the greatest composers and conductors in history have influenced the members of this traditional orchestra and promoted chamber music activities. The members of the percussion group have not escaped this call and since 2008 have been organized in the formation OPERcussion. Thomas März, Pieter Roijen, Maxime Pidoux, Carlos Vera Larrucea and Claudio Estay bring to the ensemble their virtuosity, their knowledge, the traditions of their countries of origin and their peculiarities. This international ensemble has distinguished itself in the world of percussion and in the music scene in general for the innovation and diversity of its programs, which include collaborations and commissions with contemporary composer:s, as well as arrangements of music not originally written for percussion, from the eras: Baroque, Classical and Impressionist to the interpretation of Latin American music with grandiose improvisational ideas.

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Here the former General Music Director Zubin Mehta rehearses together with the violinist Vilde Frang and the Bayerische Staatsorchester for the 4th Academy Concert. The composer of the specially commissioned world premiere, Minas Borboudakis, was also present.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Carl Orff’s opera Der Mond was premiered on February 5th, 1939 at the Bavarian State Opera under the musical direction of Clemens Krauss in a production by Rudolf Hartmann. The composer wrote the libretto himself and in doing so took over literal text passages from the fairy tale of the same name by the Brothers Grimm. Orff’s description of this “small world theater” is based on the three scenes of heaven, earth, underworld and the view of a little boy on it. Orff thought about his opera as “a thoughtful parable of the futility of human efforts to disturb the world order and at the same time a parable of being safe in this world order”. The composer himself described the music as his “farewell to romanticism”. Critics were enthusiastic, for example the musicologist Fred Hamel: “So you encounter a creation that has been desired for the opera stage for a long time […] It’s great how Orff’s music also fully expresses this power here the elementary means of rhythm and song form […] With this economy of means, Orff’s melodic invention is so powerful, his rhythmic imagination so inexhaustible, that they evoke a sheer abundance of changing impressions of pictorial power.”

Photo credit: Hanns Holdt

Among his childhood heroes there were sporting heroes such as Karl Allgöwer (his direct free-kick goals – awesome!), Lothar Matthäus and Boris Becker and of course also violinist-musical ones like Henryk Szeryng, David Oistrach and especially Gidon Kremer. The best hall in which David Schultheiss has played so far is the Suntory Hall in Tokyo. He also has a special memory of a concert in the aforementioned Suntory Hall: David Schultheiss has never experienced such a tense and expectant silence from the audience between the applause for the conductor and the first sound of the concert.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

In addition to Munich, Christian Loferer feels very comfortable in Sydney and San Francisco. He has busked in Edinburgh before, and if he could make any activity an Olympic event, time telling would give him the best chance of winning a medal.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Meghan Nenniger prefers to vacation where her family is, mostly in Canada. And her book recommendation is Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez. Everyone should read this book.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Her childhood heroes are The Three Investigators: She heard Paganini for the first time in these radio plays and then absolutely wanted to play it. A special concert for Julia Pfister was the concert with Kirill Petrenko as part of the 2016 European tour at La Scala in Milan. Everyone was in the flow and the atmosphere was unforgettable!

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

For Barbara Burgdorf, the best thing about her job is the beauty it offers for the soul, for herself and for others. If she hadn’t become a musician, she would probably have been a biologist.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl