Sun, Jun. 16, 2024, 11.00 am | Elbphilharmonie, Recital Hall
Henri Tomasi: Concert champêtre for oboe, clarinet and bassoon
Francis Poulenc: Sonata for clarinet and piano
Francis Poulenc: Sonata for oboe and piano
Charles Koechlin: Sonata for bassoon and piano op. 71
Jean Françaix: Trio for oboe, bassoon and piano
Francis Poulenc: Trio for oboe, bassoon and piano
Oboe: Guilherme Filipe Sousa
Klarinette: Patrick Hollich
Fagott: José Silva
Klavier: Mario Häring
Guilherme Filipe Costa e Sousa was born in Coimbra, Portugal. He completed his bachelor of music in oboe performance after studies with Ricardo Lopes at the Escola de Música e Artes do Espectáculo in Porto. He then completed a master of music degree with Diethelm Jonas at the Lübeck Music Academy. Both as a soloist and chamber musician, Guilherme Sousa has won various competitions, including first prizes at the music competition of the Portuguese Radio RTP “Prémio Jovens Músicos” in the solo and chamber music category, the first prize at the National Wind Instrument Competition in Terras de La-Sallete, the second prize at the 51st Possehl Music Award and the third prize at the 5th Józef Ciepłucha International Oboe Competition in Łódź, Poland. In Portugal, he was named Musical Newcomer of the Year in 2013. From 2015 to 2017 he was a member of the orchestral academy of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, performing concerts in Germany and abroad under conductors such as Mariss Jansons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Kent Nagano and Sir John Elliot Gardiner. In 2017 Guilherme Sousa was appointed associate principal oboe at the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra. He then became principal oboist of the Düsseldorf Symphonic Orchestra at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein from 2017 to 2020. In 2020 he won the position of principal oboist at the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra.
Patrick Hollich studied at the Stuttgart Music Academy and attended numerous master courses. He won several major competitions. His career has taken him as a soloist to the Baden-Baden Philharmonic and the Bucharest Radio Orchestra, among others. He began his orchestral trajectory as a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Germany and, from 2013 onwards, held several guest positions as principal clarinettist, including at the Frankfurt Museum Orchestra and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. Since 2015 he has been associate principal clarinettist of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra.
José Silva, born in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, in 1995, started playing the bassoon at the age of nine as part of the education programme “El Sistema”. He gathered orchestral experience in various Venezuelan orchestras under conductors such as Gustavo Dudamel, Simon Rattle and Claudio Abbado. At the age of 15, he first toured Europe with the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra. In Caracas, he participated in master courses with Klaus Thunemann and Carlo Colombo, among others. From 2012 to 2017 he studied with Matthias Racz at the Zurich Academy of the Arts. José Silva was a member of the academy of the Bavarian State Orchestra and played as a substitute with the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich and the Dresden Philharmonic. He won prizes at the Concours National d’Exécution Musicale de Riddes and the Carl-Maria von Weber Bassoon Competition in Wroclaw. Since 2018 he has been principal bassoon of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra.
Already in the first half of the 20th century, French composers and orchestras used to put the woodwinds in the foreground, which was to define their style and the special French sound. Francis Poulenc was one of the most important representatives of this tradition, and so the creative polychromy and sensitive poetry of his music is the focus of the 6th Chamber Concert. "After all the impressionistic mists, won't this simple and clear art [of Poulenc], so reminiscent of Scarlatti and Mozart, be the next phase of our music?" In any case, Darius Milhaud's prophetic statement about Poulenc's becoming and working was to prove true in the realm of wind music. With his few wind works - the trio, the sextet and the three sonatas for flute, clarinet and bassoon - he set standards that continue to have an impact today. Poulenc's compositional spheres are complemented by the music of Henri Tomasi, Jean Françaix, and Charles Koechlin. Behind the seemingly naive title of Tomasi's rural concerto "Concert champêtre" lies a knowing allusion to the music of the French Rococo, mixing French "couleur locale" with the Corsican flair of Tomasi's homeland. Returning to the sounds of Impressionism is Charles Koechlin's Bassoon Sonata. Koechlin was considered an outsider in the France of his time, yet he created an exceptional work that shows how delicate and at the same time wild and intoxicating the bassoon is, how many splendid nuances of sound the instrument, which otherwise usually stands in the background, carries within itself. Jean Françaix's Trio in four movements shows the 82-year-old composer unchanged at the height of his creative powers: melodic inventiveness, rhythmic wit, harmonic elasticity and an elegant instrumental movement enter into a particularly happy union.
Venue: Elbphilharmonie, Recital Hall, Platz der Deutschen Einheit 4, 20457 Hamburg
