Manfred Honeck, Truls Mørk

»Fate shuffles the cards – and we play«. In the spirit of this quote from Schopenhauer, we look forward to the programme under the baton of our honorary conductor Manfred Honeck. The evening begins with the overture to a musical card game: Tchaikovsky’s dramatic setting of Pushkin’s 1890 novel revolves around a countess who in her youth was a fearless gambler known as the »Queen of Spades« – and who harbours a secret about three unbeatable cards that prove fatal for a young officer gambling in a casino. Shostakovich also had a great passion for games: he was an enthusiastic football fan, kept in touch with the members of his favourite club and even trained as a referee. It is possible that his experiences in the stadium enabled him to charge, channel and explode the massive sounds in his compositions so ingeniously – as in his magnificent Second Cello Concerto from 1966, in which Truls Mørk takes on the role of the charging striker. The work also offers plenty of room for development: although it often reveals brooding moments, it nonetheless features the grotesque passages so typical of Shostakovich – be it a dialogue between drums and soloist, moody, contemplative passages or xylophone clatter. Finally, we truly tempt fate: Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony is overall dominated by a lamenting motif, but the score, written in 1888, also contains wonderful intimate instrumental duets and a light-hearted waltz – after all, Descartes already believed that »inner joy has some secret power to make fate more favourable«.

Tickets from 25.08.2025 10 a.m.