An Eternity of Hope

RECORDINGS OF THE WORKS

Franz Schubert: Strykekvintett i C-dur, D. 956

The concert plays an excerpt of the work.

Open on YouTube (2017)More recordings on Kulturbase

Richard Strauss: Metamorphosen, TrV 290

Open on YouTube (2016)More recordings on Kulturbase

Videos from Kulturbase

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An Eternity of Hope

Description

The concert creates a narrative that leads the listener through smouldering conflicts, war and grief, but most importantly puts the focus on there being something worth fighting for, on hope enduring and light returning even after the darkest of times. Parallels are drawn to tragic events of earlier times, while today we must also face a world that in many places is once again in flames. The music is carefully chosen and put together from excerpts from, among others, Schubert's beautiful String Quintet in C major, Stravinsky's precise, almost mechanical tones 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 sound clips of the voices of war and a reading of Paul Celan's poem "Todesfuge" - 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 changing positions in the space 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 that 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 constantly today, must fight against the malevolent forces that create conflicts 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