Schwetzingen SWR Festival: Opening I - A Praise of Diversity

Young musicians present works by Mozart, Clarke, and Zemlinsky, among others. They are very young yet already professionals: At the Schwetzingen SWR Festival, concerts featuring the prize winners of the prestigious ARD Music Competition have become a tradition, and in 2026, various chamber music formations will again mix the familiar with the unknown. In the Saturday concert, two clarinet trios set the framework – in different ways, as Mozart's Kegelstatt Trio is scored for clarinet, piano, and viola, while Zemlinsky's Brahms-related Opus 3 features a cello. Schubert's song "Borders of Humanity" may be familiar to some. But what about the "Trois impressions" for cello and piano by the Dutch composer Henriëtte Bosmans, a student of Arnold Schönberg? And what about the "Five Melodies" for baritone and piano by the composer Hans Gál, who was also a biographer of Brahms and Verdi, and who had to emigrate to England as a Jew in 1933? The fact that the duo pieces for clarinet and viola by Rebecca Clarke, composed in 1941, were only published twenty years after the death of the English violist and composer shows how influential gender roles were at that time. The effects are still felt in concert life today. The Schwetzingen SWR Festival believes this must change – and they are taking action. There is still much to be done.