Sinfoniekonzert | Fin de Siècle

Fin de Siècle | Junges Ensemble Berlin
15.06.2025 | 15:30 Philharmonie Berlin

Lili Boulanger
D'un matin de printemps
César Franck
Le Chasseur maudit
Camille Saint-Saëns
Symphony No. 3 in C minor op. 78 "Organ Symphony"

End-time mood. A periodically occurring thought that is currently very much in vogue again. And it was less than 120 years ago that an entire epoch was given this name: Fin de siècle. Not only the end of the century, but also the end of art, nature, civilization, even the world.

Our musical excursion into France's third republic, entitled "Fin de Siécle", is anything but doom. It is a departure.

It begins with a morning mood, originally a piece for violin and piano by Lili Boulanger and arranged for orchestra by herself: d'un matin de printemps. The morning with her is shimmering, rays of sunshine break through the colorful orchestra. No sleepy Monday morning without coffee, no morning mood à la Grieg. A Sunday morning with freshness.
The hunt is not difficult afterwards, César Franck's Le Chausser maudit is a playful and animated setting of a hunting tale in the style of a romanticized presentation of nature, including small scary passages. The music is Wagnerian in character and
Unlike Boulanger, the music does not sound impressionistically elegantly French, but is oriented towards operatic tonal language and dramatic expression.
In the second half of the concert, we expand our orchestra to include the queen of instruments: the organ. Camille Saint-Saens wrote his so-called "Organ Symphony" at the same time as his best-known work, the Carnival of the Animals, and now and then he quotes himself, because in addition to the organ, he also adds piano four hands. However, these
However, these instruments, which are unusual for orchestras, do not take on concertante solo roles, no, they are integrated into the orchestral sound and are a fully-fledged member of the ensemble. The timbres are even interwoven and skillfully "hidden" in such a way that they do not go unnoticed, but at first discreetly expand the sound spectrum.
At the end of the day, the result is a snappy and entertaining program.

Junges Ensemble Berlin | Symphony Orchestra
Michael Riedel | Conductor
Marco Heise | organ

27/22€ | 21/16€ | 15/10€