A new violin concerto with Leila Josefowicz

SPIEGELZAAL 1:40-14:05 PM - Frederike Berntsen in conversation with Robin de Raaff

Helen Grimes new Violin Concerto is played for the first time on Dutch soil by Leila Josefowicz. Karina Canellakis also conducts Brahms' Second Symphony and a Robin de Raaff premiere.

De Raaff and Zimmermann's sense of time
In his orchestral work Sfera, Robin de Raaff pays homage to his fellow composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann. More specifically, he connects to his ideas about a "spherical time," in which past, present and future unfold simultaneously. The premiere of Sfera was originally planned for 2020, the fiftieth anniversary of Zimmermann's death. At that time, the large-scale work could not be performed in a one-and-a-half meter arrangement; this concert will still feature its world premiere.

Grime and Brahms
With her Violin Concerto, the Scottish Helen Grime wrote a work of extremes. Violent, virtuosic music covering the entire range of the violin is contrasted with delicate filigree material. That even before corona premieres were occasionally postponed is demonstrated by Johannes Brahms' Second Symphony. According to American musicologist Walter Frisch, the work was shelved in 1877 because the Vienna Philharmonic was too busy with rehearsals for Wagner's Das Rheingold.