Season Opening Concert

with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Joana Mallwitz

While our season opening is by no means “Alles Walzer,” this dance form—developed in the late 18th century with its lively turns—sets the tone for the program from the outset: The Konzerthausorchester and Joana Mallwitz whirl through waltzes from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, his famous “comedy for music.” Maurice Ravel’s La Valse from 1920, on the other hand, is also permeated by eerie undertones, as it is both a dance of death and an ironic homage to the 19th century. The principal conductor and her orchestra continue the dance theme with movements from Prokofiev’s richly orchestrated, rhythmically complex ballet Romeo and Juliet. In between, our new composer-in-residence, Unsuk Chin, introduces herself with a new work: Subito con forza (“suddenly, with force”; 2020) is full of allusions to Beethoven’s music and thus ties into the complete symphonic cycle that Joana Mallwitz will conduct around the 200th anniversary of his death in 2027. Unsuk Chin calls her work a “personal homage to arguably the first modernist composer in music history.”