Symphony concert 10

»Art is all that counts here!« That applies not only for Richard Wagner’s Meistersinger von Nürnberg, but also most definitely to the meistersingers of Cologne: Bernd Alois Zimmermann and York Höller. York Höller, one of the most important »descendants« of the »Zimmermann school«, already known to the Gürzenich Orchestra audience through several new pieces, is writing a new viola concerto for the unique Tabea Zimmermann for Zimmermann’s 100th birthday. The »birthday boy« will be present himself with a key work of the 20th century: the »Musique pour les soupers du Roi Ubu«, a »black ballet« honouring the infantile usurper King Ubu, title figure from Alfred Jarry’s pataphysical grotesque absurdity. Long before sampling and remix were all the rage, Zimmermann wrote a musical piece consisting completely of quotations. Hector Berlioz’s »Symphonie fantastique«, along with Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries and Stockhausen’s piano piece, gets into the fangs of the »debraining machine«. Time becomes space here. They say that already in Parsifal. François-Xavier Roth will command the time machine.