Beethoven Orchestra Bonn

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Beethovenhalle - main venue for the orchestra (2009)

The Beethoven Orchester Bonn is the symphony orchestra of Ludwig van Beethoven's native city Bonn .

history

On October 1, 1907, the city of Bonn signed a contract with which it took the Koblenz Philharmonic Orchestra, founded ten years earlier, and its conductor Heinrich Sauer into their service. Thus, after the electoral court orchestra was dissolved in 1794, the Beethoven city again had its own professional orchestra. It was initially called the Bonn City Orchestra , from 1963 the Bonn Beethoven Hall Orchestra and has been called the Bonn Beethoven Orchestra since 2003 . It is also the orchestra of the Bonn Opera .

From 1907 to 1922 Heinrich Sauer worked as the municipal conductor and Hugo Grüters as the municipal music director .

With the outbreak of World War I , the orchestra had to survive the first major crisis in its 100-year history. The old Beethovenhalle , the orchestra's concert hall, was converted into a military hospital and a large number of the orchestra members were drafted into military service. In April 1916 the city dissolved the orchestra due to a lack of financial resources. It was not until 1920 that the orchestra was re-established after initial resistance from the city council. Further existential threats followed through the global economic crisis and the outbreak of the Second World War . Musicians of the orchestra and also the then general music director Gustav Classens were called up for military service, the Beethoven Hall was destroyed in a bomb attack. The new Beethovenhalle was inaugurated in 1959 and has been the orchestra's main venue ever since.

Most recently, the Swiss Stefan Blunier (2008–2016) and Christof Prick (2016–2017) led the orchestra. The conductor Dirk Kaftan has been at the helm of the orchestra since the beginning of the 2017/2018 season.

With its 106 musicians, it is one of the top class German orchestras. Every season it plays around 120 opera performances and 50 concerts in Bonn as well as numerous guest concerts at home and abroad.

Prominent conductors

Major composers and guest conductors led the orchestra. In 1907 Richard Strauss conducted his own works in Bonn, and in 1914 Max Reger , Fritz Busch and Max Bruch worked with the orchestra on the occasion of the Middle Rhine Music Festival . Paul Hindemith , Hans Pfitzner , Erich Kleiber , Joseph Keilberth , Karl Böhm , Rudolf Kempe , Sergiu Celibidache , Günter Wand , Sir Malcolm Sargent and Kurt Masur followed, among others .

General Music Directors

Productions

The orchestra has created numerous musical productions since its inception. This includes E.g. the complete recording of all symphonies by Dmitri Shostakovich , conducted by Roman Kofman , by the end of the 2005/2006 season . From this series, the internationally renowned Penguin Guide to Compact Discs selected the recording of the 7th Symphony as a “key recording” (recording with reference character) and described it as an “outstanding performance and recording in every respect”. Numerous CD recordings were made under the direction of General Music Director Stefan Blunier, including a complete recording of all nine symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven. Since 2007, the Beethoven Orchester Bonn has won five ECHO Klassik awards and the German Record Critics Award .

100th birthday

On September 21, 2007, the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn celebrated its 100th birthday with a concert in the Beethoven Hall as part of the Beethoven Festival. The symphony was Occident by Karsten Gundermann premiered. Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 in C major op. 21 and Edward Elgar's Violin Concerto in B minor op. 61 with Gidon Kremer as the soloist were also on the program.

literature

  • Norbert Schloßmacher (Ed.): 100 Years of the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn. Impressions from a century of orchestral history . Bonn 2007.

Web links

swell

  1. ^ Beethoven Orchestra: CD publications