Claude Debussy 1862–1918
Jeux – Poème dansé
Sergei Prokofiev 1891–1953
Violin Concerto Nr. 1 in D Major op. 19
interlude with Thomas Guggeis
Igor Stravinsky 1882–1971
Le chant du rossignol
Richard Strauss 1864–1949
Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks op. 28
pre-concert talk by Andreas Bomba at 10am in the main auditorium
Debussy's ballet music for Jeux tells the story of a man, looking for his tennis ball in the twilight, who meets two girls. He flirts with them but can't decide which one he prefers, so they leave him to his own devices.
Stravinsky's symphonic poem Le chant du rossignol sets Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale about a nightingale that sings for the Emperor of China, but is substituted by a mechanical nightingale, to music. The emperor nearly dies grieving for his lost nightingale, but it flies back and sings him back to health
Is there another work that tells a story as vividly and clearly as Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks? Strauss, initially reluctant to explain it further because "all the wit's in ths music", eventually relented and wrote down “his” story in 22 bits, from “Once upon a time” to “There he dangles until, after a last twitch, Till’s mortal life is over”.
Prokofiev’s 1st violin concerto is purely instrumental, although the cheerful atmosphere of a Siberian landscape in summer through which Prokofiev journied while composing it can be heard.
