Residentie Orkest The Hague 

Anja Bihlmaier, conductor 

Yeol Eum Son, piano 

Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975) 

Piccola musica notturna (1954) 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) 

Piano Concerto No. 20 in d, KV 466 (1785) 

• Adagio 

• Romanze 

• Rondo, Allegro assai 

Break 

Anton Webern (1883-1945) 

Langsamer Satz (1905) 

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847) 

Symphony No. 1 in c, op. 11 (1824) 

• Allegro di molto 

• Andante 

• Menuetto 

• Allegro con fuoco 

End of concert approximately 10 p.m. 

Dallapiccola, Mozart, Webern and Mendelssohn 

Could a career as a child prodigy be bad for one's health? In any case, it makes one wonder that Mozart and Mendelssohn, both celebrated as children for their wonderful music, lost their lives at a young age. With a piano concerto and a symphony, their works are the focus of this concert. 

Night 

The title may be the same as Mozart's famous Eine kleine Nachtmusik , but that is where any comparison ends. For where Mozart intended his work as a dispassionate serenade during a cozy evening party, Luigi Dallapiccola's Piccola musica notturna is pure nocturnal mood music. The inspiration was Spanish writer Antonio Machada's poem Noche de verano (Summer Night), in which he describes the night in a deserted Spanish village square. Dallapiccola's music does not follow the poetry closely like a symphonic poem, but tries above all to transform the atmosphere of the village shrouded in silence into sound. Even a single unexpected sound, like the slamming of a door or the ringing bell in the tower, cannot break through the thinness. Dallapiccola uses a free atonal, serial style for his piece, but this is hardly noticeable. On the contrary, it has a reinforcing effect, because, unhampered by a recognizable melody or beneficent harmony, you can really let the desolation penetrate you as a serene sound field. 

Pedal Piano 

In February 1785, father Leopold visited his son Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Vienna. Already on the evening of his arrival, he was immediately taken to the first of a series of concerts conducted by the composer. As usual, everything was finished just in the nick of time. The Last movement of the Piano Concerto No. 20, which was on the program, Mozart had not even been able to rehearse because the copyists had not yet finished the orchestral parts. But the success was great, not least because of the profound emotionalism of the piano concerto written in minor. A special feature was that Mozart played the work on a pedal piano, an instrument to which was attached an extra foot keyboard, similar to an organ, on which he could add additional bass notes to the solo part. Although after Mozart's death most of his piano concertos were long forgotten, this Piano Concerto No.20 remained the only one that remained popular throughout the nineteenth century and was on the repertoire of such luminaries as Beethoven, Hummel, Clara Schumann and Brahms. 

Primal love 

Head-over-heels in love was young Anton Webern in 1905. He was on hiking vacation with his niece Wilhelmine Mörtl in the hills around Vienna, and the enjoyment of the beautiful nature mixed with the deep feelings for the beautiful young lady by his side. Naturally, it inspired him to compose. An entire string quartet was in his mind, but he got no further than a slow movement. It was the time when Webern was already taking lessons from Arnold Schoenberg, but the days of atonality, for which both became so famous, were still far away. In this composition, he was still entirely guided by the late German Romanticism of Richard Strauss, Max Reger and Alexander Zemlinsky. The result is eight minutes of extremely romantic, almost sultry music full of restrained passion. And music with a prophetic tinge because not long afterwards the couple in love married. 

True symphony 

Only just fifteen years old, Felix Mendelssohn already had a large number of compositions to his name, including piano music, chamber music, choral works, various solo concertos, yes even small operas that he had performed with great success in domestic settings. Of particular note were his twelve symphonies for string orchestra, in which the young composer had demonstrated a perfect command of the various musical forms. To these, in 1824, Mendelssohn added his first "real" symphony, written for full symphony orchestra. It was a mature work that was received with approval by his usually strict teacher Carl Zelter. Diligently, Mendelssohn displayed his symphonic knowledge and experience. And although he draws inspiration from predecessors such as Haydn and Mozart, as well as contemporaries such as Weber and Beethoven, it is overwhelmingly a work by Mendelssohn, in which the maturity of his later symphonic works is already evident. 

The premiere of the Symphony No. 1 took place in family circles in November 1824 in honor of his sister Fanny's nineteenth birthday. The symphony was publicly performed a few years later in 1827 at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig and reviewed favorably.  

But completely delirious was the audience when Mendelssohn conducted it two years later in London for the Philharmonic Society, where, incidentally, he replaced the minuet with an orchestral arrangement of the scherzo from his Octet for strings. 

Kees Wisse 

Residentie Orkest The Hague 

Anja Bihlmaier, conductor 

Yeol Eum Son, piano 

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847) 

Symphony No. 1 in c, op. 11 (1824) 

• Allegro di molto 

• Andante 

• Menuetto 

• Allegro con fuoco 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) 

Piano Concerto No. 20 in d, KV 466 (1785) 

• Adagio 

• Romanze 

• Rondo, Allegro assai 

End of concert approximately 10 p.m. 

Mozart and Mendelssohn 

Could a career as a child prodigy be bad for one's health? In any case, it makes one wonder that Mozart and Mendelssohn, both celebrated as children for their wonderful music, lost their lives at a young age. With a piano concerto and a symphony, their works are the focus of this concert. 

True symphony 

Only just fifteen years old, Felix Mendelssohn already had a large number of compositions to his name, including piano music, chamber music, choral works, various solo concertos, yes even small operas that he had performed with great success in domestic settings. Of particular note were his twelve symphonies for string orchestra, in which the young composer had demonstrated a perfect command of the various musical forms. To these, in 1824, Mendelssohn added his first "real" symphony, written for full symphony orchestra. It was a mature work that was received with approval by his usually strict teacher Carl Zelter. Diligently, Mendelssohn displayed his symphonic knowledge and experience. And although he draws inspiration from predecessors such as Haydn and Mozart, as well as contemporaries such as Weber and Beethoven, it is overwhelmingly a work by Mendelssohn, in which the maturity of his later symphonic works is already evident. 

The premiere of the Symphony No. 1 took place in family circles in November 1824 in honor of his sister Fanny's nineteenth birthday. The symphony was publicly performed a few years later in 1827 at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig and reviewed favorably.  

But completely delirious was the audience when Mendelssohn conducted it two years later in London for the Philharmonic Society, where, incidentally, he replaced the minuet with an orchestral arrangement of the scherzo from his Octet for strings. 

Pedal Piano 

In February 1785, father Leopold visited his son Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Vienna. Already on the evening of his arrival, he was immediately taken to the first of a series of concerts conducted by the composer. As usual, everything was finished just in the nick of time. The Last movement of the Piano Concerto No. 20, which was on the program, Mozart had not even been able to rehearse because the copyists had not yet finished the orchestral parts. But the success was great, not least because of the profound emotionalism of the piano concerto written in minor. A special feature was that Mozart played the work on a pedal piano, an instrument to which was attached an extra foot keyboard, similar to an organ, on which he could add additional bass notes to the solo part. Although after Mozart's death most of his piano concertos were long forgotten, this Piano Concerto No.20 remained the only one that remained popular throughout the nineteenth century and was on the repertoire of such luminaries as Beethoven, Hummel, Clara Schumann and Brahms. 

Kees Wisse 

Anja Bihlmaier - conductor 

Studies Musikhochschule Freiburg, Mozarteum Salzburg. 

Current position Chief Conductor Residentie Orkest, regular guest conductor Lahti Symphony Orchestra.
Highlights Recently she has conducted the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Tampere Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra Symfónica de Barcelona, Basque National Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony, Finnish Radio Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid and MDR-Sinfonieorchester. In recent seasons she also conducted several opera productions in Vienna (Volksoper), Trondheim and Malmö. Was permanently associated with the opera houses of Kassel and Hannover. 

Yeol Eum Son - piano 

Education Hochschule für Musik Theater und Medien, Hanover. Also studied at the Korean National University of Arts. 

Highlights Concerts with orchestras such as New York Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Dresdner Philharmoniker, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande with conductors such as Vasily Petrenko, Andrew Manze, Susanna Mälkki, Nicholas Collon, Pablo González, Jun Märkl and Anja Bihlmaier. Debuts this year with BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, among others. 

Won prizes at Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition and Van Cliburn Inernational Piano Competition, among others. 

Other Is this season artist in residence of Residentie Orkest, Royal Conservatory of Music and Amare. 

Residentie Orkest The Hague 

Founded The Hague, 1904 

Current chief conductor Anja Bihlmaier 

Permanent guest conductors Richard Egarr and Jun Märkl 

Chief conductors Henri Viotta, Peter van Anrooy, Frits Schuurman, Willem van Otterloo, Jean Martinon, Ferdinand Leitner, Hans Vonk, Evgenii Svetlanov, Jaap van Zweden, Neeme Järvi, Nicholas Collon. 

To be seen at Amare, Paard, The National Opera, Royal Concertgebouw, De Doelen, TivoliVredenburg among others . 

Education Annual outreach to over 40,000 schoolchildren, adults and amateur musicians in educational projects. Part of this is The Residents, through which the orchestra brings hundreds of children from districts in The Hague into contact with classical music.