“Moonlight” festival is the Motto of Nike Wagner’s sixth Beethoven. What connects the Director and what she plans for the Beethoven anniversary in 2020, has betrayed them in the DW-interview.
DW: this year’s Beethoven festival (6. up to 29. September 2019) has the Motto of “moonlight”. How did you come up with that?
Nike Wagner: I’m still looking for a term that the concert-goers spontaneously with Beethoven would connect. The “moonlight Sonata” recorded millions of clicks on the Internet, so to associate millions of people in the moonlight with Beethoven. Then I check: How is the new Motto of the former? The issue in the previous year was called “fate”, a heavy, very Beethoven’shear term. And then I thought, we can make it more lyrical, more intimate, before the big hype in the anniversary year 2020 begins.
What is the theme of moonlight Express? After all, it fits perfectly into the anniversary year of the moon landing.
Of course, we are pleased that we can also score on the scientific-technical side. Two of our ideas will take the old dream of mankind, a moon landing satirically on the grain. But what interests us more is the aesthetic reflection of the moonlight, the experience of the moonlight in the art. And this is reflected musically extremely rich low.
Beethoven Statue in Bonn
Until about 1800 Notturni were singing and serenades without end composed – basically open-air music, under the window of the Beloved. With the romance then the night itself is the subject – in the case of Schumann, or Chopin, Wagner and Mahler, in the case of all sorts of composers who wanted to give the ambivalent feelings, the call of the night and the magic Shine of the moon, highlighting the expression. In addition to love, dreams and Secrecy is part of the Creepy, Spooky in the moonlight. He distorted the contours of the Familiar. The interested in the Modern, such as in Arnold Schoenberg’s melodramatic Grotesque from the “moon Peter Chen”, the “Pierrot lunaire”.
How is this reflected in the theme in the program?
The “moonlight Sonata” is the Central work, played versions in various Sound and also in modern “change”. 1985 Giselher klebe has the voice of a Horn to composed. The other major work is Beethoven’s sixth Symphony, the “Pastoral”. The moon is a natural phenomenon – Beethoven was a great Walker and lover of nature. In the “Pastoral” we take part in his feelings in the country, he brings a whole new sound. Then there is a veritable “Nocturne”-weekend, there’s Mozart’s “Serenata notturna”, Haydn’s Notturni, the “night music” by Gustav Mahler, but also the witches ‘ Sabbath, in the “night on bald mountain” by Modest Mussorgsky. In addition, atmospheric piano recitals on the theme of night, the moon, and nature, through Liszt to Debussy to “Moonlight Serenade” by Glenn Miller… “Blackbird” is an evening of dance by Joachim Schlömer. And, of course, heard a lot of Beethoven piano concertos, symphonies, chamber music. A silver moon beam is likely to be in most of the productions to.
Inspiration for many composers: the moon
What is your personal Highlight?
I want to bring in the Beethoven festival is always Special. Not only the works of the classical repertoire, but also cross-references in our presence. Therefore, there is every year a world premiere of a contemporary composer, associated with the request to refer to Beethoven. This year it is Enno Poppe, a wonderfully imaginative composer who has received the order. And what Beethoven he was looking for out of this? The Violin Concerto! The violinist Carolin Widmann, in the meantime, a world star, has agreed to play both violin concertos; only Poppe Beethoven, then. After the break, then the big Delirium: Beethoven’s Seventh. It is the NDR Elbe Philharmonic orchestra under its chief conductor Alan Gilbert.
The main venue this year is the World Conference Center Bonn (WCCB), the renovation of the Beethoven hall is not yet completed. What are your expectations for the Beethoven festival in Bonn in 2019?
I sincerely hope that the public sites in spite of the game-the problems we have here in Bonn – our program just reads and says: “no Matter what hall I hear it, the works are so interesting that artists are so prominent, we go to the Beethoven.” This would be delighted simply, I’m the “organiser”.
2020 would Beethoven have become 250 years old. What are you planning for the big anniversary?
Next year, we will organize two Festivals: a smaller Beethoven festival in March and the usual great Beethoven festival in September. The March of the season gets the Title “be embraced” – that everyone understands. And the fall season gets little puzzles fuller title of “Resurrection, Yes resurrection”. This is a quote from the Ode by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, the Gustav Mahler has inspired to his second, his “resurrection Symphony”. And this “resurrection Symphony” – a mighty work, the quasi-Beethoven’s Ninth übergipfelt – we play to the end of the autumn season 2020. At the beginning, like, Beethoven’s Ninth, played by the Bayreuth festival orchestra.
Teodor Currentzis comes to 2020, according to Bonn
And what happens in the spring of 2020?
For the spring season 2020, we have asked Teodor Currentzis to conduct a cycle of all nine symphonies of Beethoven, and his orchestra musicAeterna of the Opera of Perm, a so-called original orchestral sound. Currentzis has a own, to all the borders of in-depth conducting handwriting; I’ve heard the Ninth, last year of him in Salzburg fantastic. With an amazing accuracy and incredible dynamic shades are liable. Between these Beethoven evenings, but “wrap around” Europe: There is a round of the European orchestra and guest performances, with works by European contemporaries, composed “for” Beethoven, combined with the late works of the great masters of the respective countries.
In 2020, they will pass on their seventh and final Beethoven festival as artistic Director. How does it feel?
I’m already sad, because in Bonn, so much potential there, and I feel in the Rhine being in good hands: chatting, is accessible, to communicate, everything flows. Of course, there are also pitfalls in politics and the media, but there are in every city. As the artistic Director of beethovenfest on your art must remain in position and may also be time to fight back.
The importance of the Beethoven anniversary for you?
I am glad that I can help BTHVN 2020, because it is just a floor higher. We have here to do with capital of culture year. This will increase the perception of Bonn very, nationally and internationally – at times not from a political point of view, but from an artistic. And it was the aim from the start that my contract would go up to 2020, could, should.
The interview was conducted by Pure sign.