Orchestre des Champs-Élysées / Collegium Vocale Gent / Philippe Herreweghe

A warning and a glimmer of hope

200 years of Ode To Joy. 200 years of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. A convincing reason for Philippe Herreweghe and his excellent ensembles from Paris and Ghent to look at the 1824 masterpiece from a completely new perspective. To mark the anniversary of the monumental symphony with its brilliant choral finale, whose »sparkle of the gods« seems to have become ever more radiant over the centuries, he juxtaposes it with an eminently pacifist work: Hanns Eisler’s 1936 choral composition »Gegen den Krieg« (Against the War) based on a text by Bertolt Brecht. The expressive work is characterised by Eisler’s own traumatic experiences from the First World War and the looming disaster of the next war. Both a warning and a glimmer of hope speak from this programme, which ultimately sends out a »Seid umschlungen Millionen!« (Be embraced millions!) into the world.