Sofia Gubaidulina
»In tempus praesens« concerto for violin and orchestra (2007)
Gustav Mahler
Symphony no. 1 D major first version (1888/99)
- Simone Lamsma Violin
- Gürzenich-Orchester Köln
- Karina Canellakis Conductor
Preconcert talk one hour before the concert with Wiebke Rademacher
Making the present tangible rather than just mentally moving back and forth between past and future—that’s what the composer Sofia Gubaidulina, born in 1931 in the Tatar city of Chistopol, wants to achieve with her music. That’s why she called her 2ndViolin Concerto In Tempus Praesens. But how could you feel the present more emphatically than with the feeling of an existential threat? A highly virtuosic musical battle of the individual against an all-powerful collective in a world full of contradictions—the young Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma will be the soloist shaping this. Gustav Mahler too leads the fictional protagonist of his 1st Symphony, based on Jean Paul’s novel Titan, from carefree youth to the abyss of hell. A few years later the composer found the programmatic movement titles of the first 1888 version uncomfortable, and he found the “Blumine” movement, originally the second one, sentimental. At the Gürzenich Orchestra concert, conductor Karina Canellakis will put this trumpet serenade, which is still rooted in the Romantic era, up for discussion once again.
