Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks

A reunion with Sir Simon! Simon Rattle returns to Musikfest Berlin as a guest for the first time after taking up his post as Chief Conductor to the Chor und Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. The evening opens with a parody: Paul Hindemith’s “Rag Time (wohltemperiert)”, in which the then 26-year-old young rebel delighted in sending up the theme from Bach’s C minor Fugue – number 2 from the “Well-Tempered Clavier” (Volume 1) – with jazzy verve. “If Bach was alive today, he might have invented the shimmy or at the very least made it part of respectable music,” the composer commented jovially. This will be followed by the American baritone Lester Lynch applying his customary silky legato to Alexander von Zemlinsky’s “Symphonic Songs”, which set texts by African American poets who came to fame as part of the “Harlem Renaissance.” These included Langston Hughes, who would later collaborate with Kurt Weill on “Street Scene.” The texts, which the Austrian women’s rights activist, pacifist and educator Anna Nussbaum compiled and translated in 1929 for the volume “Afrika singt” that caused a sensation at the time, use drastic realism and disturbing language to address the everyday life of Black poets, which is characterised by racism and includes experiences of violence, rape and lynchings. The book was banned by the National Socialists in 1938 and many of those involved in its creation were persecuted. Alexander von Zemlinsky, a composer with Jewish roots, also went into exile. In his setting, he largely resisted any melodic or rhythmic echoes of  jazz, blues or spirituals. Instead he contrasted the intense emotion of the lyrics with an at times neoclassically cool sound world – to remarkably great effect.