Tanz unter Sternen

The Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and Nils Mönkemeyer, the leading star of the evening, open the evening in the Liederhalle with a melody from the Middle Ages.

Performers
Nils Mönkemeyer . Viola & Conductor
Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra

Program
Hildegard von Bingen
Ignee Spiritus

Johann Sebastian Bach
Contrapunctus No. 4 from the Art of Fugue BWV 1080

Improvisation

John Dowland
Lachrimae Antiquae for viola and strings

Antonio Vivaldi
Violin Concerto in B minor RV 390 (for viola)
II Larghetto

Luigi Boccherini
Musica Notturna delle Strade di Madrid

Francesco Maria Veracini
Overture in G minor
I. Allegro

Antonio Vivaldi
Concerto in G minor RV 495 for viola, orchestra and basso continuo

Charles Avison
Concerto Grosso No. 3 in D minor (after Scarlatti)

Grażyna Bacewicz
Concerto for string orchestra

"Because the viola, of all the string instruments, is perhaps the one that floats the most between registers and registers, it is best suited to drawing colorful nuances. It comes very close to the human voice." (Nils Mönkemeyer)

The Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and Nils Mönkemeyer, the leading star of the evening, open the program with a melody from the Middle Ages. According to the mystic Hildegard von Bingen, her hymn should sound "like a mighty gust of wind". Intoxicating sounds from the Renaissance and Baroque periods from Dowland to Bach, Boccherini, Veracini, Vivaldi and Avison, almost all in a night-blue minor key, form the inner circle. The intensity is increased even further: Mönkemeyer, known for his artistic and imaginative concert programs, chooses a masterpiece of Polish music as the finale. Grażyna Bacewicz's Concerto from 1948 effortlessly manages the balancing act between neoclassicism and modern rhythms. Nils Mönkemeyer has been described by Bayerischer Rundfunk as follows: "The variety of sound that (he) gets out of his viola is sometimes brazenly unleashed, then delicate as if through a veil, then again dead straight." What's more, he is "the figurehead among violists".