Ittingen Pfingstkonzerte – Concert 7

According to myth, the swan sings for the last time at the end of its life – sadly, but more beautifully than ever before. This is not a lament, but a final, luminous note: the swan song.

Schubert had already died when his publisher compiled his final songs into the cycle we know today. Brahms had also said goodbye – to composing and to the noise of the world. But then Richard Mühlfeld came along with a voice that broke everything open again: soft and sweet, as if from another time. Brahms called him 'Fräulein Clarinet'. The result was not a late work, but a piece about old age: a memento mori in sound. Yet the whole piece is also a declaration of love: to Clara Schumann, to music and to the quiet survival of memory. In the Adagio, one can sense the cymbals, hear Hungarian shadows dancing, and experience how a single note – the last one – may fail. Or perhaps it does. And the finale? Variations like farewells. A rebellion, a silence, a cry. Then a chord, like an 'amen'. Not as an ending, though. But as a transition. Those who stop say everything once more. And those who have said everything may just be beginning.

Gérard Pesson:
Nebenstück
for clarinet and string quartet
(based on Ballade Op. 10 No. 4 by J. Brahms).

Franz Schubert
Songs by Ludwig Rellstab
from Schwanengesang, D 957
for voice and piano

Johannes Brahms:
Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115

In the Remise