Ensemble Hermes: An Eternity of Hope

Sunday 8 November 2026, 16:00Slesvigske Musikhus, Haderslev

About the concert

The concert creates a narrative that leads the listener through smouldering conflicts, war and grief, but above all it focuses on the fact that there is something worth fighting for, that hope endures and that the light returns even after the darkest of times. Parallels are drawn to the tragic events of earlier times, while today we must face a world that in many places is once again on fire. The music has been carefully selected and assembled from excerpts of, among others, Schubert's beautiful String Quintet in C major, Stravinsky's precise, almost mechanical sounds in his Concerto for Strings, Shostakovich's wild String Quartet No. 8, and at the centre also stands the whole of Richard Strauss's emotionally charged work Metamorphosen from 1945. Ensemble Hermes has arranged the music themselves and, interwoven with short audio clips of the voices of war and a reading of Paul Celan's poem “Death Fugue” - which in many ways can be seen as a poetic counterpart to Strauss's Metamorphosen - one long flow is created that makes up the concert. The ensemble's seven musicians also take up shifting positions in the room and use a few props to reinforce the expression of the music and support the storytelling. The title “An Eternity of Hope” comes from Kaj Munk's poem about the blue anemone, which breaks through the black earth and overcomes the resistance of its surroundings. “The Blue Anemone” became the symbol of Munk's own resistance to the German occupation, and an image of the people who throughout history, and still today, must fight the malevolent forces that create conflict in our world. In the last verse of the poem, the sight of the anemone and its pure colour instils “an eternity of hope” in the narrator. The concert is carried out with support from Augustinus Fonden and Dansk Musikerforbund.

Chamber music

Programme

Performers

Concert series

Haderslev Musikforening

Haderslev

Haderslev Musikforening arranges a series of concerts every year at Slesvigske Musikhus. Here on the page you can read the latest news about the events, and you have the opportunity to comment.

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