9th Philharmonic Concert

Bertrand de Billy

Richard Strauss: “Moonlight Music” and final scene from the opera “Capriccio”

Richard Strauss: “Four Last Songs”

Richard Strauss: “A Hero’s Life” tone poem op. 40

As part of the Hamburg International Music Festival

Dirigent: Bertrand de Billy
Sopran: Maria Bengtsson
Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg

Bertrand de Billy

Conductor

The French-Swiss conductor Bertrand de Billy is one of the most important artists both on the opera stage and on the concert platform and is a regular guest at the Vienna State Opera, where he can be seen this year in the revival of Les Dialogues des carmelites following the new production he successfully conducted, as well as in Tosca, Guillaume Tell, Don Giovanni and Faust. He also returns to the Staatsoper unter den Linden with Macbeth and returns to the Opera de Paris with a new production of La Vestale , directed by Lydia Steier. At the Salzburg Festival, he conducts the concert performances of Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet in summer 2024. On the concert platform, he conducts the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Orchestre Chambre de Lausanne and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo in 23/24.
In previous seasons, Bertrand de Billy conducted Die Zauberflöte, La Bohème, Manon, Dialogue des Carmélites, Otello, Faust, Die Fledermaus and Der fliegende Holländer at the Vienna State Opera, Dialogues des Carmélites at the Metropolitan Opera, Carmen at the Staatsoper unter den Linden in Berlin and Don Carlos at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Der fliegende Holländer at the Bavarian State Opera, Don Giovanni at the Opera de Paris and at the San Francisco Opera.
Early engagements have taken him to the State Operas in Vienna, Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, La Monnaie in Brussels, the Opéra National de Paris and the opera houses in Washington and Los Angeles. He was a regular guest at the Metropolitan Opera in New York from 1997 and at the Salzburg Festival from 2002. He has also performed worldwide with leading orchestras such as the Cleveland Orchestra, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Orchestre de Paris, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and others: Museum Orchestra Frankfurt, Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, RSB Berlin, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Copenhagen Orchestra, Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre Suisse Romande, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and many more. and many more.
De Billy conducts a broad repertoire ranging from Bach to numerous premieres and first performances. Today, he works just as closely with the Vienna State Opera, the Theater an der Wien, the Vienna Musikverein and the Vienna Konzerthaus as he does with the Bavarian State Opera.
De Billy was born in Paris, received his training in his home city and first appeared here as an orchestral musician, but very soon also as a conductor. From 1993-95, he was first conductor and deputy GMD at the Anhalt Theatre in Dessau, and held the same position at the Vienna Volksoper from 1996-98. From 1999-2004 he was chief conductor of the Gran Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona, from 2002-2010 chief conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. From 2013 to 2015 he was Principal Guest Conductor of the Frankfurt Opera and the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra and from 2013 to 2016 Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and from 2014 to 2018 Principal Guest Conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra.
Numerous CD and DVD recordings document his artistic work. Bertrand de Billy has received several high honours in France and Austria.

Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg

Orchestra

The Philharmonic State Orchestra is Hamburg’s largest and oldest orchestra, looking back on many years of musical history. When the “Philharmonic Orchestra” and the “Orchestra of the Hamburg Municipal Theatre” merged in 1934, two tradition-steeped orchestras combined. Philharmonic concerts have been performed in Hamburg since 1828, artists such as Clara Schumann, Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms being regular guests of the Philharmonic Society. The history of the opera company goes back even further: Hamburg has been home to musical theatre since 1678, even if a regular opera or theatre orchestra was only formed later. To this day, the Philharmonic State Orchestra has embodied the sound of the Hansa City, a concert and opera orchestra in one.

During its long history, the orchestra encountered great artist personalities. Apart from composers of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, such as Telemann, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Mahler, Prokofiev and Stravinsky, since the 20th century chief conductors such as Karl Muck, Joseph Keilberth, Eugen Jochum, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Horst Stein, Aldo Ceccato, Christoph von Dohnányi, Gerd Albrecht, Ingo Metzmacher and Simone Young have shaped the orchestra’s sound. Renowned conductors of the pre-war era such as Otto Klemperer, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Bruno Walter, Karl Böhm and Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt gave brilliant performances, as did outstanding conductors of our times: suffice it to mention Christian Thielemann, Semyon Bychkov, Kirill Petrenko, Adam Fischer and Sir Roger Norrington.

Starting with the 2015/2016 season, Kent Nagano has taken on the position of Hamburg’s General Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Philharmonic State Orchestra and the Hamburg State Opera and since June 2023 also its honorary conductor. In his first season Kent Nagano initiated a new project, the Philharmonic Academy, focusing on experimentation and chamber music. In 2016, Nagano and the Philharmonic toured South America, followed by concert tours to Spain and Japan in 2019, and in the spring of 2023, the Philharmonic State Orchestra made its debut at New York's Carnegie Hall under his direction, which was acclaimed by audiences and the press. Since 2017 Kent Nagano and the Philharmonic State Orchestra have continued the traditional Philharmonic Concerts at the new Elbphilharmonie, for which they commissioned Jörg Widmann to compose the oratorio ARCHE, which was given its world premiere during the hall’s opening festivities. The concert recording has been released by ECM, for which Widmann received the OPUS KLASSIK as Composer of the Year 2019, and ARCHE was performed again in 2023 to great acclaim.

The Philharmonic State Orchestra offers approximately 35 concerts per season and performs more than 240 performances per year at the Hamburg State Opera and the Hamburg Ballet John Neumeier, making it Hamburg’s busiest orchestra. The stylistic bandwidth covered by the 140 musicians, ranging from historically informed performance practice to contemporary works and including concert, opera and ballet repertoire, is unique throughout Germany. Chamber Music has a long tradition at the Philharmonic State Orchestra: what began in 1929 with a concert series for chamber orchestra has been continued since 1968 by a series of chamber music only.

In 2008 Simone Young and the Philharmonic State Orchestra won the Brahms Award of the Schleswig-Holstein Brahms Society. The orchestra has recorded the complete Ring by Wagner as well as the complete symphonies of Johannes Brahms and Anton Bruckner – the latter in the rarely-performed original versions – as well as works by Mahler, Hindemith and Berg, and has released DVDs of opera and ballet productions by Hosokawa, Offenbach, Reimann, Auerbach, J.S. Bach, Puccini, Poulenc and Weber.

The members of the Philharmonic State Orchestra feel equally beholden to Hamburg’s musical tradition and responsible for the city’s artistic future. Since 1978 the musicians have been participating in education programmes in Hamburg’s schools. Today, the orchestra maintains a broad education programme, including school and kindergarten visits, patronage for music projects, introductory events for children and family concerts. The orchestra’s own academy prepares young musicians for their professional careers. The Philharmonic’s musicians thereby make an equally enjoyable and valuable contribution to tomorrow’s music education in the music metropolis of Hamburg.

Richard Strauss - a celebrated composer, politically controversial cultural figure and undoubtedly an artist who was ahead of his time - is the musical portrait of this concert. Confidants described him as a humorous person who never let fame go to his head. His loves were music, his family and playing cards (he was even said to be a good loser). He began composing at the age of six. He reached the first peak of his instrumentation art with his famous tone poem “A Hero's Life”. Critics accused him of shameless self-glorification in this work, but Strauss said: “I am no hero. I lack the necessary strength; I am not made for battle; I prefer to withdraw, to enjoy peace and quiet…” If you want to look for autobiographical traits in his work, it’s worth taking a look at the “Four Last Songs”, which contain his examination of the themes of death and Farewell reflects – an artistic legacy; a farewell to this world.