Jugend-Sinfonieorchester Ahrensburg / Sönke Grohmann

Belá Bartók’s Viola Concerto is considered one of the most important works for viola and orchestra, and not only in the 20th century. Several versions of this concerto can be found today, which is due to the fact that the composer was unable to complete this work during his lifetime. His pupil Tibor Serly completed the fragments handed down by Bartók into a concerto. The Bartók/Serly version is a three-movement work. It begins with a serious Moderato, followed by a fairly short, slow second movement and a finale in third place, which was composed in an Allegro vivace. Bartók’s compositional style is not based on song-like, motivic melodies as was common in the Romantic period. Instead, the composer creates his themes with a semitone whole-tone scale, which he uses to shape the concerto for viola and orchestra. The demanding solo part is played by 19-year-old Johannes Loschelder from the ranks of the Jugend Sinfonieorchester Ahrensburg.

The Hamburg composer Johannes Brahms took his time with the publication of his First Symphony. He took around 20 years to complete it, putting himself too far in the shadow of the great symphony composer Ludwig van Beethoven. The four-movement work contains a densely woven introduction that introduces the dark and tense themes of the Symphony in C minor. Brahms’ symphonic style is characterised by singing melodies and instrumental solos, for example in the lyrical second movement. This contrasts with the rhythmic and dance-like character of the third movement, for which an exuberant cantilena in the clarinet at the beginning forms the basis. The final movement rounds off his 1st Symphony in C minor brilliantly: here too, Brahms opens the movement with a sombre and tense introduction, then plays an »alphorn melody« in joyful C major before moving on to the main movement, whose main theme is familiar to many thanks to the Hamburg Journal, for example. The themes are developed by Brahms and lead to a coda that rounds off this work impressively.