Frankfurt Kabuff

At a time when many of his contemporaries were exploring more fluid structures, Franz Schmidt while perhaps stretching tonal harmony to its limits, continued to embrace 19th-century form and achieved a highly personal synthesis of the diverse traditions of the Austro-German symphony. His language, rather than being wedded to a narrative of dissolution and tragedy is radiant and belligerently optimistic and reveals this scion of largely Hungarian forebears as the last great exponent of the style hongrois after Schubert, Liszt and Brahms.

The Music of Chick Corea's legendary group, Return To Forever… Reimagined the latest coolaboration between multiple Grammy® winner Beasley & the twice-nominated Frankfurt Radio Big Band.

In 1904 Max Reger wrote what was to be the first in a major sequence of variations on themes by his great predecessors. The Variations and Fugue on a Theme by J.S. Bach was written for piano but its richness and virtuosity exceed the scope of the instrument. Ira Levin’s orchestration clarifies the structure, intensifies climaxes and reduces its length. The Four Tone Poems explore the paintings of the symbolist Arnold Böcklin and form symphonic mood pictures that veer from delicacy to Bacchanalian frenzy.

Paavo Järvi is one of the most successful and distinctive conductors in the international music scene. His recordings of the complete Beethoven and Bruckner symphonies have received rave reviews and are in fact regarded as “reference recordings” (Fono Forum). His current project with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony is again another great symphonic cycle: the six symphonies by Denmark’s most famous composer, Carl Nielsen (1865 – 1931), whose 150th anniversary is celebrated this year…