Les Siècles I

In the first concert at 18:00, the musicians of this authentic-sound ensemble present Hector Berlioz’s ‘Symphonie fantastique’, one of their internationally acclaimed showpieces, and embark on an almost symphonic journey with soloist Isabelle Faust in Beethoven’s only violin concerto. The musicians adopt the instrumentation appropriate to the time in which each piece was written and hold the attention with a fresh, often unusual view of old and new.

In the late-night concert at 21:00, the musicians of Les Siècles expand their repertoire spectrum to include the music of French modernism.

Visions and dreams are the stuff from which Hector Berlioz made one of the most popular key works of French orchestral music. His ‘Symphonie fantastique’ tells of the magic of love, the pain of longing, intoxication of every kind and nightmarish abysses of the human soul.

At the same time, the composition is a veiled portrayal of its craftsman’s own soul: Berlioz wrote his “fantastic symphony” under the heavy burden of unrequited love, charting new territory in both sound and form and flinging open the gates to the symphonic music of the future.

Hector Berlioz was fascinated by the music of Ludwig van Beethoven, which he celebrated as a conductor and music critic in France above all.

Beethoven’s only violin concerto, premiered in Vienna in 1806, set new parameters for the hitherto prevailing tradition of a bravura solo concerto. Its three movements are charged with a never-failing flow of energy from the strangely electrifying commencement through the expansive central movement to the brilliant finale. Beethoven wrote the work for violin virtuoso Franz Joseph Clement, one of the brightest stars of his day. The no less celebrated violinist Isabelle Faust now follows in his footsteps.

Concerto for violin and orchestra in D major op. 61 (1806)

Symphonie fantastique op. 14 (1830)