Mahler Chamber Orchestra / RIAS Kammerchor

The horn, the quintessential Romantic instrument, features in this concert programme as both soloist and accompanist. Johannes Brahms composed “Four Songs” for women’s chorus at the beginning of 1860 for the Hamburg Ladies’ Choir he conducted. The instrumentation of two horns and a harp is highly Romantic: the horn as an allegory of the mysterious forest and the sound of the harp as a symbol of aeolian winds. Even the choice of the texts poses a small cross-section through the Romantic period and its literary sources in folk art. 20th century composers such as Arnold Schönberg, Paul Hindemith, Carl Nielsen, György Ligeti and Jean Françaix have explored special instrumental formation of the brass quintet with its unusual modes of expression. In 2003, Wolfgang Rihm made a further enrapturing contribution to this genre with his wind quintet. Rihm at the time dedicated it to Ensemble Wien-Berlin. The recently composed concert for Horn and Orchestra by Wolfgang Rihm is dedicated to Stefan Dohr, the horn player in this ensemble and solo horn player of the Berliner Philharmoniker. The performance at Musikfest Berlin by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under Daniel Harding and featuring Stefan Dohr as soloist will be the German premiere.