Thomas Hampson sings Berg

»Did not a secret trepidation suddenly seize you at the sight of the one who belongs only to himself sparking the idle curiosity that perturbs him, capturing it by enchanted means, banishing it into a bottle?« Thus the medieval verse epic on which Wagner's opera »Tristan and Isolde« is based. Wagner began composing his opera in 1857, inspired by his forbidden love for Mathilde Wesendonck, and it offers a world of emotions that he himself classed as ranging »from the most extreme desire for delight to the most determined longing for death«. Even while the craze for Wagner was still rampant, Debussy was opening up new musical horizons in the vibrant fin de siècle. He sought »teachings in freedom« and preferred to listen to the wind »that tells us the story of this world.« In his 1905 work »La Mer«, he succeeded in creating an impressionistic masterpiece: key motifs are spun out, moving and shifting incessantly on the glittering play of the ocean waves. We will also perform a musical meditation from the United Kingdom, the homeland of Finnegan Downie Dear, who won our 2020 Mahler Competition. For a long time, composer Jonathan Harvey was considered an insider tip. His 1998 work »Tranquil Abiding«, inspired by Buddhism, is a tantalising listening experience: with a single slow rhythm, it engages the entire orchestra in a contemplative inhaling and exhaling. We are also very much looking forward to hearing Thomas Hampson, who will perform seven songs by Alban Berg, including three that he himself discovered – for the famous baritone has always been driven by curiosity! Berg composed these early songs around 1907 when he was in his early twenties, and although there are already hints at his shift towards twelve-tone technique, the pieces are in fact very close to Wagner and Debussy – and tell an enchanting love story, for Berg had just met his future wife when he wrote them.