Winterkonzert des AGV-München: Munktell - Rachmaninoff - Franck

In the organizer's words:

Program:
Helena Munktell: Bränningar, op. 19
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2, op. 18 (soloist Emanuel Roch)
César Franck: Symphony in D minor

After a severe creative crisis and depression, Sergei Rachmaninoff succeeded in catapulting himself back into the music world as a composer with his second piano concerto in 1901. The concerto, characterized by profound, emotional expressiveness and enormous virtuosity, embodies the Russian musical language of Romanticism like no other and quickly gained great popularity, not least through Rachmaninoff's own performances in Europe and the United States.

César Franck's monumental Symphony in D minor, which was premiered in Paris in 1889, stands stylistically between the French and German musical traditions. The combination of drama, lyrical moments and a rich orchestral color palette makes the work a unique contribution to symphonic literature. Initially controversial, Franck's symphony was eventually able to assert itself over time and today stands for the musical work of a composer who, contrary to fashion, made Paris a center of the symphonic tradition.

The orchestral works of the Swiss composer Helena Munktell are also part of this tradition. She found a second home for her artistic development in Paris at the end of the 19th century and received composition lessons from Vincent d'Indy, a pupil of César Franck, among others. In Bränningar - described by Munktell as a symphonic picture - she captures the wild surf of the Scandinavian sea, but her truly tone-painterly, multi-faceted orchestration clearly takes up the French tonal language and already refers to the music of Impressionism. The AGV Munich Symphony Orchestra is now performing the work for the first time in Germany under the direction of Maximilian Leinekugel.