RICHARD WAGNER: Tristan und Isolde – Prelude and Isoldes Liebestod
ERNEST CHAUSSON: Poème de l’amour et de la mer, Op. 19 (Poem of Love and the Sea)
***
BÉLA BARTÓK: Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116, BB 123

Marlis Petersen soprano
Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductor: György Vashegyi

Joining the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra as the soloist at this concert conducted by general music director György Vashegyi in the Great Hall of Vienna’s Musikverein on 5 March 2025 will be the world-famous German soprano Marlis Petersen. The programme ranges from Romanticism through the fin de siècle period to the 20th century, with the Prelude and Isolde’s Liebestod from Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde being followed by the rare treat of Ernest Chausson’s song cycle Poème de l’amour et de la mer, composed between 1882 and 1890 and revised in 1893, and Bartók’s late masterpiece, written in America, Concerto for Orchestra.

The focus this evening is on a unique performer and a magically beautiful masterpiece that still remains to be discovered, as György Vashegyi, general music director of the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, conducts them in a programme of German Romantic, French fin de siècle and 20th-century Hungarian music on the stage of Vienna’s Musikverein. Serving as the ensemble’s guest soloist is the world-famous German operatic soprano Marlis Petersen, who will sing Ernest Chausson’s song cycle Poème de l’amour et de la mer, which he composed between 1882 and 1890 and revised in 1893. This refined and visionary French music will be preceded by the passionate German Romantic sounds of the Prelude and Isolde’s Liebestod from Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde. As they so often do at their guest performances, the ensemble will conclude the concert in the second part with an emblematic work from their own musical culture: Bartók’s masterpiece of love of country and homesickness Concerto for Orchestra.