Autumn concert

Verdi: Overture from Nabucco
Haydn: Symphony No. 73 in D Major “La chasse”
Mozart: Symphony in A Major KV 201
Dvořák: Suite – From the New World
Brahms: Hungarian Dance No. 6
J. Strauß: Die Jagd – Quick Polka

Residence- Soloists

In the grand festival hall of Schleißheim Palace, an autumn concert unfolds—rich in color, contrast, and shifting moods.

The evening opens with the overture to Nabucco by Giuseppe Verdi. Dramatic blocks of sound alternate with lyrical passages, and already here, the yearning motif of the later world-famous “Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves” appears. According to legend, this section of the libretto inspired Verdi—after a period of personal hardships—to return to composing.

Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 73, “La chasse,” brings a classical autumn scene to the hall. Its nickname comes from the fourth movement, “The Hunt,” where horn signals and galloping rhythms conjure a traditional hunting scene. Known for his humor, Haydn plays with expectations: unlike many hunt pieces of the era, the final movement fades away gently, as if the hunting party simply rides off into the distance.

Youthful elegance characterizes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Symphony in A Major KV 201. Despite its modest instrumentation, the work is remarkably rich in color and expression—a light, airy composition written by the eighteen-year-old composer in Salzburg.

Antonín Dvořák’s From the New World Suite opens vast sonic landscapes. Impressions from America—the street noise of New York, rhythms reminiscent of spirituals, expansive Native American-inspired melodies, and Slavic dances—blend with Dvořák’s deep longing for his Bohemian homeland.

The cheerful finale is Johann Strauss’s quick polka Die Jagd. At its premiere in Vienna’s Volksgarten, the audience was so captivated by the loud whip cracks and playful “Hali-Hallo” calls in the orchestra that the piece had to be repeated immediately. Strauss masterfully used such effects to stir the exuberant atmosphere of the Viennese ball season.

Verdi: Overture from La Forza del Destino
Mozart: Concerto for Flute and Harp – Allegro
Mahler: Symphony No. 5, Adagietto
Debussy: Danse sacrée et danse profane
Bizet: Carmen Fantasy for Flute
Smetana: The Moldau
Offenbach: Can-Can & Barcarole
J. Strauss: The Blue Danube – Waltz

Janine Schöllhorn – Flute, Emilie Jaulmes – Harp & Residenz Soloists

This concert takes the audience on a highly emotional journey through Europe’s opera houses and river landscapes, carried by dramatic fate and elegant dance.

The evening opens with Verdi’s overture to La Forza del Destino. The work begins with three striking opening notes—the famous “Fate motif”—before unfolding the most beautiful melodies from the opera. Anecdote: Verdi was convinced that this opera was cursed. In fact, in several productions, lead performers died on stage or scenery collapsed. The gripping overture is so intense that many conductors today approach it with extra reverence, as if to avoid challenging fate itself.

A moment of pure serenity follows with Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp (Allegro). One of the few Classical works combining these two ethereal instruments, it was commissioned by a French duke and his daughter. Anecdote: Mozart privately mocked the “impossible” pairing, yet he produced a score that sounds so effortlessly light, as if angels themselves had guided his pen.

We experience the deepest Romanticism in Mahler’s Adagietto from his Fifth Symphony. Composed solely for strings and harp, it is one of the most touching musical declarations of love in history. Anecdote: Mahler sent the manuscript to his future wife Alma without a single word; she understood it as a marriage proposal. The piece later gained worldwide fame through the film Death in Venice, but for Mahler, it was not a farewell—it was a glowing promise of eternal love.

The mood shifts to Spanish fire with Bizet’s Carmen Fantasy for flute. Based on Bizet’s opera, the work demands peak virtuosity from the soloist. Today, the fiery rhythms of the Habanera and the Gypsy Song are among the most beloved melodies in the world, here brilliantly transposed for the flute.

We follow the course of the river with Smetana’s The Moldau. From the first trickle of two small streams, the music swells into a mighty river flowing past hunting scenes and a village wedding. Anecdote: When Smetana composed this national epic, he was already completely deaf. He could only hear the roaring of the St. Johann Rapids in his imagination—a testament to extraordinary creative power despite physical adversity.

The grand finale features masters of entertainment. Offenbach first transports us to a gondola in Venice with the dreamy Barcarole, before the notorious Can-Can celebrates Parisian nightlife. Anecdote: When it premiered, the Can-Can was considered so scandalous and indecent that the police inspected dance halls to ensure dancers’ legs did not rise too high.

Verdi: Ouverture from „Nabucco“ 
Vivaldi: Fluteconcerto
Mozart: Fluteconcerto Re major KV 314
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 „Eroica“

Residence - Soloists

Concert Program – From Baroque to Romantic 
This program takes the audience on a journey through centuries: from Vivaldi’s Baroque virtuosity and Mozart’s Classical elegance to Verdi’s operatic drama and Beethoven’s groundbreaking Romantic vision, offering both historical insight and musical adventure.

Overture to Nabucco – Giuseppe Verdi
Verdi’s overture to Nabucco bursts with drama and intensity, immediately drawing the listener into the world of the biblical story. Nabucco was the opera that first brought Verdi widespread acclaim in 1842, and its overture foreshadows the sweeping emotional contrasts of the full work. Anecdotally, when Verdi conducted early performances, audiences were reportedly so moved by the overture’s grandeur that many stood in silent awe before the first act even began. The work’s heroic gestures and majestic themes set the perfect tone for a program that moves from Baroque elegance to Romantic drama.

Flute Concerto – Antonio Vivaldi
Vivaldi’s flute concerto showcases the brilliance of the Baroque flute, an instrument that was considered both delicate and expressive. His concertos often feature virtuosic passages that push the limits of the performer’s technique. Legend has it that Vivaldi, nicknamed the “Red Priest” for his hair, would sometimes write last-minute passages specifically to challenge his students at the Ospedale della Pietà, where he taught orphaned girls. The interplay between soloist and orchestra in this concerto captures the vibrant energy of Venetian Baroque music, alternating between lyrical melodies and sparkling, rhythmic brilliance.

Flute Concerto in D Major – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s flute concerto in D major exemplifies the elegance and clarity of the Classical era. Written in 1778 for the Dutch flutist Ferdinand De Jean, the work features graceful melodies and refined dialogue between soloist and orchestra. An interesting anecdote: Mozart reportedly struggled to compose the concerto while traveling, writing letters to his father expressing frustration over deadlines and the flutist’s “insatiable demands.” Despite these challenges, the concerto radiates effortless charm and wit, combining virtuosic passages with lyrical, song-like themes that continue to captivate audiences today.

Symphony No. 3 – Eroica – Ludwig van Beethoven
Beethoven’s Eroica symphony is a revolutionary work that transformed the symphonic tradition. Originally dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte, Beethoven famously withdrew the dedication when Napoleon declared himself Emperor, reportedly tearing the dedication page in anger. The symphony’s first movement introduces heroic motifs, dramatic tension, and bold harmonic exploration. The funeral march of the second movement contrasts tragedy with triumph, while the finale bursts with joy, wit, and exuberance. The Eroica represents Beethoven’s belief in music as a vehicle for human heroism and emotional depth, making it a cornerstone of the Romantic symphonic repertoire.

Mozart: Overture from Don Giovanni
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C minor “Fate” – Allegro con brio
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major
Dvořák: From the New World – Suite

Residence Soloists
 

In the golden shimmer of the Rococo Cuvilliés Theatre, the evening begins with a musical thunderclap. The overture to Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart bursts into the hall with those Dantean, shattering chords that foreshadow the ominous appearance of the “Stone Guest,” before plunging into a restless, almost demonic Allegro. In just a few minutes, it captures the entire dramatic spectrum of the opera, balancing tragedy and comedy with remarkable intensity.

Mozart was also a master of working under pressure. Legend has it that he wrote the overture during the night before the premiere in Prague in 1787, while his wife Constanze kept him awake with punch and stories. The copyists received the score only the next morning, and the orchestra had to perform the demanding piece that very evening almost straight from the page.

The first movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in C minor follows with what is perhaps the most famous musical motif in history: the iconic four-note figure that dominates the entire movement. From this tiny musical cell grows a vast surge of sound, charged with extraordinary tension and energy. The nickname “Fate Symphony” is said to come from Beethoven’s secretary Anton Schindler, who claimed that Beethoven described the opening motif with the words: “Thus fate knocks at the door.” Ironically, the premiere in 1808 was something of a disaster: the audience shivered in the unheated Theater an der Wien, and the orchestra struggled through an exhausting program that lasted nearly four hours.

Quite different in character is Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto in G major, one of the most poetic and introspective works of his output. Instead of beginning with a powerful orchestral statement, the concerto opens quietly and unexpectedly: the piano alone introduces gentle, lyrical chords, as if the music were emerging from a private thought. Only afterwards does the orchestra respond, reversing the traditional relationship between soloist and ensemble. At the premiere Beethoven himself played the solo part, although his hearing was already severely deteriorating; it would be his final appearance as a soloist with orchestra. Contemporary accounts describe how he played with such physical intensity that he knocked the candleholders off the piano during an expansive gesture. Choirboys rushed in to hold the candles, only to be pushed aside again at the next entrance, provoking laughter in the audience. Beethoven, however, reacted angrily: after only a few bars he stopped the orchestra and began the movement again from the start.

The program concludes with music by Antonín Dvořák from his famous Symphony No. 9 “From the New World.” Composed during his time in the United States in the 1890s, the work reflects Dvořák’s fascination with the sounds and musical traditions he encountered there, from African American spirituals to Native American melodies. Yet the symphony also carries a deep sense of homesickness for his native Bohemia. The suite drawn from this symphony highlights some of its most memorable moments: expansive melodies, vibrant rhythms, and the famous Largo with its hauntingly beautiful English horn solo.

Together these works form a concert rich not only in musical brilliance but also in stories: of overnight inspiration, chaotic premieres, and the passionate temperament of some of history’s greatest composers.

Frédéric Chopin: Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor
Johann Sebastian Bach / Sergei Rachmaninoff: Partita No. 3
George Gershwin: 18 Songs for Piano
George Gershwin: Porgy and Bess – “Summertime”, “Bess, You Is My Woman Now”, “It Ain’t Necessarily So”
George Gershwin: 3 Preludes
Jazz Standards & Improvisation 

Frank Fan Ming Ling - Klavier

From Chopin to Gershwin – When Classical Music Becomes Jazz

The modern jazz piano recital is not really a radical new beginning, but rather a fascinating continuation of the classical tradition. The clarity of Johann Sebastian Bach, the poetic lyricism of Frédéric Chopin, and the rich romantic sonorities of Sergei Rachmaninoff gradually lead toward the freedom we hear in jazz.

Rachmaninoff, often described as the “last Romantic,” deeply admired Chopin. For him, Chopin represented the ideal model: brilliant piano technique combined with profound emotional expression. In his Variations on a Theme of Chopin, Rachmaninoff allowed Chopin’s delicate melodies to shine within a new and broader sound world.

When Rachmaninoff emigrated to the United States in 1918, he encountered an entirely new musical energy: jazz. Surprisingly open to this development, he followed it with great interest. He especially admired George Gershwin, whose music brought together classical tradition, blues, and jazz. Rachmaninoff listened enthusiastically to Gershwin’s works and even attended concerts that presented this new blend of classical and jazz.

In this way, a musical line emerges: from Chopin’s poetic piano style, through Rachmaninoff’s expansive romantic sound world, to Gershwin’s “symphonic jazz.”

Within jazz itself, another element plays a central role: improvisation. A so-called jazz standard is the well-known musical theme—the shared foundation, so to speak. Musicians take this theme and invent new melodies over it in the moment. It is a little like a conversation: the theme provides the starting point, while improvisation brings the personal, spontaneous story.

Thus a bridge is formed from the classical piano tradition to the free and sparkling world of jazz.

Mozart: The Magic Flute – Overture
Mozart: A Little Night Music (Eine kleine Nachtmusik)
Strauss (son): Die Fledermaus – Overture
Strauss (son): The Hunt – Polka (Jagd-Polka)
Strauss (son): The Blue Danube – Waltz (An der schönen blauen Donau)
Strauss (son): “Tritsch-Tratsch” Polka, “Pizzicato” Polka & other Fast Polka

Residenz-Solisten
 

Johann Strauss – A Homage to the Mozart He Admired

Although Johann Strauss’s father himself was a famous composer, he was determined that his son should not become a musician. Instead, he sent the young Johann to the Polytechnic Institute so that he could pursue a respectable career as a bank clerk.

The plan did not succeed. Secretly, “Schani,” as Johann was called in the family, practiced the violin with the support of his mother. When his father once caught him playing music against his wishes, he reportedly even punished him physically. Yet rather than discouraging the boy, the incident only strengthened Johann’s determination to follow his own path. And that path clearly led toward music: according to family stories, he improvised his first waltz at the age of six.

Strauss often referred to Mozart as the “God of music,” emphasizing that Mozart’s clarity and melodic richness were, in his view, unsurpassed.

The musical parallels between Johann Strauss and Mozart can be heard especially in the lightness of their melodic writing, the clarity of formal structure, and the ambition to elevate entertainment music to a true concert level.

Strauss collected Mozart’s scores—not merely as collector’s items but as objects of study. Among them were The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and The Magic Flute. His brother Eduard later recalled that Johann often spent long nights studying Mozart’s scores in order to uncover “the secret of Mozartian clarity.” He even left small handwritten notes and cross-references to Mozartian themes in his own manuscripts.

In his stage works in particular, such as Die Fledermaus, Strauss was inspired by the dramatic structure of Mozart’s Figaro. The way ensemble scenes are constructed and the manner in which characters are shaped through musical motifs reflect Mozart’s lasting influence.

The best things come in small packages: With wonderful stucco works and crystal, chandeliers equipped Max's Joseph hall is for many a small pearl in the residence and forms the perfect frame for classical concerts. Just chamber music friends estimate the intimate character of the space.

Mozart: Piano Concerto in B-flat Major, K. 595
Chopin: Polonaise
Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C Major
Grieg: Peer Gynt – Suite

Misora Ozaki - Piano & Residenz-Solisten
 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completed his final piano concerto—the Piano Concerto in B-flat Major, K. 595—in Vienna in January 1791. The music radiates lightness, serenity, and quiet elegance. At the premiere, Mozart himself sat at the fortepiano; it would be his last public appearance as a pianist. In the finale, a simple, almost song-like melody appears that Mozart later used in his song “Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling” (“Longing for Spring”), with the well-known opening words: “Komm, lieber Mai …” (“Come, dear May…”). There is a special magic in this music—a gentle farewell and at the same time a hopeful anticipation of renewal.

With his Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Ludwig van Beethoven brings fresh energy and bold colors into the concert hall. Even in this early work, the unmistakable spirit of the young composer becomes evident: elegant melodic lines combine with rhythmic vitality and surprising harmonic turns. The symphony sparkles with vitality and already hints at the creative power that would soon make Beethoven one of the greatest symphonists in the history of music.

A few decades later, Frédéric Chopin sits at a piano in a Parisian salon. Under his hands, the polonaise—once a courtly Polish dance—is transformed into a virtuosic and heroic concert piece. The famous Polonaise in A-flat Major, Op. 53 in particular unfolds monumental energy: powerful bass lines, brilliant chords, and a proud, driving rhythm. Contemporary accounts even suggest that Chopin, while composing, imagined armored riders before his eyes—an image that vividly reflects the heroic aura of this music.

The colorful conclusion of the evening is music from Edvard Grieg’s score to Peer Gynt, written for Henrik Ibsen’s famous play. From this work come two of the most beloved soundscapes in the Romantic orchestral repertoire: the lyrical “Morning Mood,” in which the sunrise unfolds in delicate woodwind lines, and the mysterious “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” whose music grows from a quiet motif into a thrilling orchestral whirlwind.

Thus, in the magnificent Cuvilliés Theatre, a musical arc unfolds—from classical elegance through Romantic virtuosity to the colorful imagination of Nordic sound. The result is a festive concert evening full of brilliance, emotion, and musical discovery.

Due to limited places, wheelcair seats can only booked through +49 89 2897 5597 manually.

Mozart: Bassoon Concerto in B-flat Major, K. 191
Haydn: Symphony No. 73 in D Major “La Chasse”
Strauss II: Die Fledermaus – Overture
Strauss II: Voices of Spring – Waltz (Frühlingsstimmen)
Strauss II: The Blue Danube – Waltz (An der schönen blauen Donau)
Strauss II: “Tritsch-Tratsch” Polka, “Pizzicato” Polka & other Polkas

Kaspar Reh - Fagott & Residenz-Solisten

Vienna – Johann Strauss and His Homage to Mozart

Whenever music is heard in Vienna, the spirit of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart seems to resonate as well. For Johann Strauss II, Mozart was nothing less than the “God of music.” His clarity, melodic elegance, and incomparable sense of musical theatre became an artistic ideal for the Waltz King.

Mozart’s genius already reveals itself in the Bassoon Concerto in B-flat Major, K. 191, the first concerto he wrote for a wind instrument—at just eighteen years of age. Mozart treats the bassoon almost like an operatic voice: full of wit, virtuoso agility, and at the same time infused with touching lyrical warmth.

Johann Strauss’s own path into music was anything but inevitable. His father, the famous bandmaster Johann Strauss I, did not want his son to become a musician and sent him instead to the Polytechnic Institute in the hope that he would pursue a respectable bourgeois career. Yet the young “Schani” secretly practiced the violin—with the support of his mother. As a child, he was already said to improvise his first waltz melodies.

Mozart’s influence accompanied Strauss throughout his life. He collected the scores of operas such as The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and The Magic Flute and studied them late into the night. His brother Eduard Strauss later recalled that Johann tried to uncover “the secret of Mozartian clarity,” sometimes even leaving small handwritten notes and cross-references to Mozart in his own manuscripts.

This admiration becomes particularly clear in Strauss’s stage works. In the operetta Die Fledermaus, for example, one finds a refined sense for ensemble writing and musical characterization—very much in the spirit of Mozart.

Thus this concert evening traces a musical arc through Vienna’s rich history: from the classical elegance of Mozart to the sparkling waltz-filled world of Strauss. Two masters united by that unmistakable blend of lightness, melody, and musical wit that continues to define the sound of Vienna to this day.

Mozart: Requiem in D minor
Mozart: Overture to “Don Giovanni”

Residenz-Solisten

 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Requiem in D Minor (K. 626) – Between Genius, Madness, and a Mysterious Commission

Mozart’s Requiem is his final work—and one of music history’s greatest mysteries. Few compositions are so entwined with legend as this Mass for the Dead, on which Mozart worked until his final hours in December 1791.

The “Gray Messenger” and a Dark Premonition
The story of its creation reads like a detective tale. One day, a mysterious, darkly dressed messenger arrives at Mozart’s door and anonymously commissions a Requiem. At the time, Mozart is already in frail health, and the secretive request begins to preoccupy him. He becomes obsessed with the idea that the messenger is a harbinger from the beyond, bringing news of his own death. “I am writing my own funeral song,” he is said to have remarked.
In reality, the enigmatic commissioner was Count Walsegg-Stuppach’s steward. The eccentric count often had works composed to pass off later as his own. He intended to acquire the Requiem under the same pretense.

An Unfinished Legacy
Mozart dies before completing the score. The Lacrimosa breaks off mid-composition. What he leaves behind is a fragment: the opening sections are fully orchestrated, but many later movements exist only as sketches or vocal lines.
Mozart’s widow, Constanze, now faced a dilemma: to secure the promised fee, the work had to be completed. She commissioned Mozart’s student Franz Xaver Süssmayr, who worked closely with Mozart’s sketches and even copied portions of his handwriting. The additions were so convincing that the commissioner accepted them as part of the final work.

A Sound World of Eternity
Musically, the Requiem unfolds a dark, solemn soundscape. In the dramatic key of D minor, it becomes a work of extraordinary beauty and intensity—a musical threshold between human fear, judgment, and hope for redemption.

Overture to Don Giovanni

Mozart’s overture to Don Giovanni also begins in the ominous key of D minor. With massive, almost Dantean chords, the music immediately fills the space—an ominous prelude to the later appearance of the “Stone Guest.” This is followed by a restless, feverish Allegro, brimming with the opera’s demonic energy.The overture condenses all the elements that define the work: tragedy and comedy, menace and vitality. Mozart composed it under immense time pressure; tradition has it that he completed the score the night before the Prague premiere in 1787. During the night, Constanze kept him awake with stories and punch, and by morning the copyists had the freshly written parts. That evening, the orchestra had to play the complex piece almost sight-read.

A typical Mozart moment: genius racing against time.

Vivaldi: “Vier Jahreszeiten” - gesamt
Mozart: “Eine kleine Nachmusik”
Pachelbel: “Canon”
 

Simon Zhu - Violin & Residenz-Soloists

 

Simon Zhu – Violin

The star of the evening is Simon Zhu, a violinist of today who brings to the stage the narrative power of the great masters of the past. His musical journey began at the age of six with his first violin lessons and soon led him to major international stages—from the Berlin Philharmonie to competition halls around the world.
At an early age he won first prizes at competitions such as the International Georg Philipp Telemann Competition and the Zhuhai International Mozart Competition, even before achieving success at the Menuhin Competition and ultimately triumphing at the prestigious Premio Paganini.
In 2023 he not only won first prize there but also received the special prize for the best performance of a Paganini concerto. On that occasion he performed on Il Cannone, the legendary violin of Niccolò Paganini—even playing it in the presence of Charles III.