Konzerthausorchester Berlin

“My Ninth Symphony” Hans Werner Henze affirmed “is focused on the German homeland – as I can recall it as a young man, both before and during the war.” Instead of singing of “schöner Götterfunken” [“beautiful spark of the gods”], the work invokes the “reckoning with a despotic and unpredictable world which was turning on us” at a time “of horror and persecution” – and is also an “expression of overwhelming reverence” for those “who displayed resistance during the period of Nazi terror” (Henze). Right from the first movement of this symphonic monument with texts by Hans-Ulrich Treichel based on the novel Das siebte Kreuz [The Seventh Cross] by Anna Seghers, focusing on the escape of seven inmates from a concentration camp, audiences are transported into the nightmarish situation of individuals “pursued by dogs and the SS” (Henze). The bleak, violent and breathless music communicates an unabating fear of death which soon develops into agony and powerlessness. The choral symphony illustrates an entire palette of the horrors of war, persecution and destruction – even though the percussion in the relentless march Bericht der Verfolger [The Persecutors’ Report] should be reminiscent “of the sounds of a (police) office typewriter (operated by an amateur)”. Henze’s Symphony No. 9, premiered by the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1997 during the 47th Berliner Festwochen, is dedicated to the “heroes and martyrs of German antifascism”. At this year’s Musikfest Berlin, Joana Mallwitz will be conducting the Konzerthausorchester Berlin and the Rundfunkchor Berlin – which will be taking on this challenging choral part as in the first performance of the work.