Nikolaus Concert. 8th SWR Chamber Music Forum

The Cultural Council invites you to the traditional St. Nicholas concert at the Schurwaldhalle. With hot tea and delicious pastries, you can once again look forward to a concert of the highest caliber featuring soloists from the SWR Symphony Orchestra. Beethoven's B-flat Trio, known as the 'Gassenhauer Trio', is one of the first major works for this ensemble in music history. Its success, as well as its nickname, is attributed to the finale, which is based on a melody that was extremely popular at the time from the opera 'Love Among Sailors' by the contemporary Joseph Weigl. Here, the joy of playing and the palpable desire of the improviser Beethoven for the unpredictable come to the fore. In contrast, there is the trio 'Two Dreams' by the young composer Robert Neumann. Although it is a clarinet trio in a classical sense consisting of a single movement, it repeatedly refers to other forms and genres, including symphonic-dramatic poetry and developing variation. The title is derived from two underlying tone series that symbolize a dream of peace and a dream of war. The entire narrative of the work is derived from these series, allowing for constant transformation as the themes alternately merge, separate, play off one another, interrupt, and contract. Finally, the trio by the Austrian late Romantic composer Alexander von Zemlinsky will be performed. This clarinet trio, rich in colors, expressive harmonies, and grand gestures, was created after the model of Brahms's Trio Op. 114. Zemlinsky composed it a year before the death of the great master. He also added a slow movement and a finale to the first movement after an initial success in a composition competition—presumably at Brahms's suggestion.