In this DW Festival Concert, violinist Augustin Hadelich performs Beethoven's complex Violin Concerto in D Major.
Image: Fotolia/ Thorsten Schmitt
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Beethoven's 'peculiar' violin concerto
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Inspired to create contemporary music that reflects the challenges of the age, from economic crises to pandemics and the climate emergency, Cologne-based Japanaese composer Malika Kishino looked to English poet T. S. Eliot.
His celebrated 2022 poem "The Waste Land" described how severe drought created sand-filled streets and dead landscapes, a scene compounded by post-World War One economic hardship.
The last section of the poem, "What the Thunder Said," inspired Kishino to compose her piece of the same name that was commissioned in 2021 by the WDR Symphony Orchestra and its conductor, Cristian Macelaru.
In this episode of DW Festival Concert, you'll listen to Macelaru leading the WDR Symphony Orchestra and cello soloist Oren Shevlin in a live recording from the 2022 Beethoven Festival.
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Beethoven's 'peculiar' violin concerto
While Kishino's composition may have sounded unusual to some, it's interesting to remember that many other pieces which we consider standard today were originally perceived as different, peculiar or even as radical breaks with musical tradition.
Beethoven's Violin Concert in D Major, Op 61 is one of them.
The composer wrote the work for violinist Franz Clement, who received bravos from the audience at the premiere in 1806.
But the critics were unimpressed.
They described the piece as disjointed, its motifs as tedious, and said the sections in the highest register were too difficult for the soloist to play in a refined and precise manner. In the following years, the piece was barely performed.
Ludwig van Beethoven initially struggled to impress the criticsImage: Imago Images
However, one should take critics with a grain of salt. After all, today, the iconic composition is widely performed by acclaimed violinists such as Augustin Hadelich.
"The Beethoven Violin Concerto is one of the greatest pieces written for the violin and one of the greatest pieces of music," Hadelich told DW on the sidelines of his performance.
"It's a piece that I want to play as many times as I can in my life, really. With this piece, I never get bored," he said. "I just love it more and more."
The 38-year-old virtusoso was born in Italy to German parents. His career began in the US, where he is well-known, while his prominence in Europe has grown more recently.
Incidently, Beethoven is said to have struggled to write for the violin. The concerto in D major is his only finished concerto for the instrument, yet today it's a standard of every violinist's repertoire.
Still, some two hundred plus years after Beethoven wrote it it remains a tricky piece to perform well due to its long passages in the high register.
Regardless, Hadelich gives an expressive performance on his warm-toned Guarneri del Gesu violin from 1744. His high notes are incredibly light, precise and imbued with emotion.
From Iron Maiden to Beethoven: Stars on stamps
Royal Mail has unveiled a series of stamps paying tribute to rock legends Iron Maiden. Postage companies worldwide have also celebrated various cultural icons.
Image: Royal Mail
Iron Maiden
The UK's Royal Mail has revealed images of 12 new stamps paying tribute to Iron Maiden. The influential heavy metal band appears on eight stamps featuring their legendary performances worldwide, while four other stamps depict the group's grim mascot, Eddie (picture), described by the postal service as "a pop-cultural icon in his own right." The stamps will go on sale on January 12.
Image: Royal Mail
David Bowie
In 2022, Deutsche Post issued a stamp paying tribute to David Bowie, who died of cancer on January 10, 2016. The influential singer lived in Berlin in the late 70s. The stamp features a picture by US photographer Greg Gorman. For its special editions, the German postal service takes suggestions from the public.
Image: dpa/picture alliance
Udo Lindenberg
Once a theme for a new German stamp is accepted, graphic designers can submit their ideas in a competition. Some celebrities simply take the design into their own hands, as was the case for German rocker Udo Lindenberg in 2018 for the collection "Udo's 10 Commandments." The proceeds went to the Boniface Association, a charity supporting social projects for women and children.
Audrey Hepburn
In 2001 Deutsche Post issued a stamp dedicated to Audrey Hepburn. But her family objected to the choice of photo showing the Hollywood icon smoking. The 14 million stamps that had already been printed had to be destroyed. A rare few survived — and became extremely valuable. A single stamp fetched €135,000 ($153,000) at an auction in 2005, and a pane of 10 stamps even reached €430,000 in 2010.
Image: Horst Ossinger/dpa/dpaweb/picture-alliance
Falco
In 2006 the Austrian post issued a special stamp with singer Falco, who died in 1998 at the age of 40. He is dressed up as Mozart, a reference to his superhit "Rock Me Amadeus" from 1985, which to this day remains the only German-language single to have reached number one of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Austria had already dedicated a stamp to its star in 1994.
Ludwig van Beethoven
An art advisory board decides on the drafts of the stamps. For deceased celebrities, the winning design must be coordinated with their heirs and estate administrators — ideally ahead of printing, as the Hepburn case taught us. The stamp for Beethoven's 250th anniversary in 2020 features a stylized version of a famous portrait of the composer by Joseph Karl Stieler.
Image: Oliver Berg/dpa/picture alliance
Hildegard Knef
Postage stamps also document the passing of time. This special stamp with the portrait of German singer and actress Hildegard Knef was issued in 2003, a year after her death. At the time, a standard letter could be sent within Germany for 55 cents. That now costs 85 cents.
Image: Raimund Müller/imago images
Sesame Street
Ernie and Bert proudly presented the 2020 series of stamps dedicated to the stars of the German spin-off of the beloved US children's show, "Sesame Street." Along with Bert, Elmo, the Cookie Monster and Ernie, the German version of the show also has the puppets Samson and Tiffy as main characters.
Image: Markus Scholz/dpa/picture alliance
Michael Jackson
Special postage stamps with prominent personalities are popular around the world. Pop stars like Michael Jackson have been immortalized in several countries. This design from a US stamp was reproduced as a mural in Rio de Janeiro, where he had shot the video for his single "They Don't Care About Us" in 1995.
Buddy Holly
Many international stamps celebrating stars are colorful and cheerful. This US postage stamp from 1993 honors rock 'n' roller Buddy Holly ("Peggy Sue"), who died in a plane crash in 1959 at the age of 22. Most pictures show Buddy Holly smiling, like the image on the stamp above.
Elvis Presley
And of course there have been stamps paying tribute to the King of rock 'n' roll all around the world — there's even one from the Pacific island state of Palau. In 1992, the US Postal Service proposed two possible designs for an Elvis Presley stamp. The design depicting him much younger won.
Australian stars
Special postage stamps often celebrate national success stories, like this 2009 series featuring Australian Academy Award winners Cate Blanchett, Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman and Geoffrey Rush. Launched in 1997, Australia Post's annual Legends Awards stamps commemorate people from the country who have made significant contributions to the world.
In 2021, the UK's Royal Mail issued a special edition featuring numerous superheroes and villains from the DC Comics universe. They were designed by British comic book artist Jim Cheung, known for his work on the Avengers series — published by DC's competitor, Marvel Comics.
Image: Royal Mail/AP/picture alliance
The Rolling Stones
In January 2022, the British postal service honored The Rolling Stones with 12 special stamps. The band celebrated its 60th anniversary that year and remains among "the most enduring rock groups of all time," the Royal Mail said. The Stones have created some of the most iconic and inspiring albums in modern music and are renowned for their groundbreaking live performances, it was noted.
Image: Royal Mail/PA Media/picture alliance
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From Beethoven to Brahms
Cristian Macelaru has been chief conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra since 2019.
Born in Romania, he began his career as a violinist and conductor in the US. Macelaru considers the WDR Symphony Orchestra to be one of the greatest professional orchestras in Germany, and he wants to broaden the orchestra's activities and raise its prominence on the international stage.
In this episode, we will be listening to composer Johannes Brahms' famous Piano Quartet No 1, with a special arrangment created by Arnold Schoenberg in the early 20th century.
Schoenberg was a great admirer of Brahms' music in his youth, so perhaps it's no surprise that he orchestrated the piano quartet.
When the piece premiered in 1937 in Los Angeles, the performance's conductor, Otto Klemperer, apparently said: "You don't want to listen to the original quartet anymore – that's how beautiful the arrangement sounds."
Schoenberg's waltzes
Many people associate Schoenberg with atonality, and for good reason. His development of the twelve-tone technique took Western classical music in radical new directions. However, in his younger years, his compositions were in fact quite tonal.
In 1897, Schoenberg composed ten waltzes for string orchestra. At the time he was playing cello in an amateur orchestra that was conducted by his teacher, Alexander Zemlinsky, who said his pupil had just as much fire in him as he did wrong notes.
It's likely that Schoenberg composed these waltzes for that orchestra that remain relatively unknown today.
So it's a real treat that we're going to hear three of them now, in a concert recording from 2021. Finally, we'll hear the crowd-pleasing encore from that concert. It's another piece by Brahms, his Hungarian Dance No. 5.
And that brings today's show to an end. We hope you enjoyed the program. Thanks to sound engineer Christian Stäter and producer Gaby Reucher.
We love feedback, so drop us a line at music@dw.com if there is anything you'd like to share. Do join Cristina Burack again for more exciting classical music in the next Deutsche Welle Festival Concert.
