La Grande Gare

Das Singfest ist eine feste Größe bei den Herbstfestspielen. Laien singen mit Profis, am Schluss geht es dann gemeinsam auf die Bühne. Im Projektchor kann jeder mitmachen, unter Anleitung der Dozentinnen und Dozenten des Balthasar-Neumann-Chores.

Why does Vivaldi's music sound so good again when played in a church? It's the reverberation. You need an echo, even if only a tiny one, to create the acoustic grid effects that transform Vivaldi's music into an intoxicating affair. Intoxication is one of the purposes of his music - its patterns composed of small motifs are the means to this end. Enough theory. In practice, it can hardly get more intoxicating than with the French ensemble Jupiter and mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre. This is how Vivaldi should be played!

Light and joy in the gray of November: the Balthasar Neumann Choir celebrates its debut at the 2024 Autumn Festival with Haydn's magnificent Creation. Today we can hardly imagine the success that The Creation enjoyed in Haydn's time...

We all love symphony and opera. But the finest, noblest genres in music are chamber music and song. And here Franz Schubert once again occupies a special position. A Schubert lieder recital with chamber music can therefore easily become the highlight of the season, especially when you have such incomparably good musicians. Julian Prégardien, one of the most important Lied interpreters not only of his generation, is a good example of this. He traces the many layers of meaning inherent in these miniatures. Because, to paraphrase a well-known Jewish proverb: When you hear a Schubert song, a whole world may open up to you.

It was a triumph! With the success of his Iphigénie en Tauride, the German Gluck prevailed in his place of work in Paris. Opera as an expression of "humanité": here Gluck struck a chord with the audience on the eve of the French Revolution...

Thomas Hengelbrock is a gifted exponent of sacred music. At the Festspielhaus he has conducted Mendelssohn's oratorios, Bach's cantatas, and the Mass in B minor. And once more he will be devoting himself to Mozart's Requiem...

With his 1760s "reform opera," Gluck advocated for an emotionally believable music theater that does not dissipate itself in dazzling virtuosity and formulaic musical numbers. Cecilia Bartoli, the great coloratura singer, places her whole art at the service of music that does not seek to overwhelm and impress, but to move us: a wonderful task for a goddess of singing.

Naturally he got off the train in Baden-Baden on his spa trip through Germany in 1856. The world-famous Gioacchino Rossini was well established in the glamorous summer capital; after all, the German premiere of his Stabat Mater had taken place here in the old theater in 1842.

When the term "musical salon" comes up, Pauline Viardot and Richard Pohl are sure to be mentioned in Baden-Baden. After her career, the French star soprano from the nineteenth century hosted a prominent salon in Baden-Baden featuring music and conversations. 

Pauline Viardot-García was one of the great artistic personalities of the nineteenth century. The soprano filled opera houses throughout Europe and inspired many composers. In Baden-Baden, she lived with her husband and the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev in a legendary ménage à trois. The musical-literary evening harks back to this great era.

They are a must: what could be called the Brandenburg Concertos of choral music. But any comparison is inadequate when it comes to Bach's motets, which are among the most beautiful and moving pieces ever written for choir. And also the most difficult: clear enunciation of the text and suitable expression are the singer’s first duty.