Seventh Symphony Concert

The seventh symphony concert is our grand choral concert of the season, with which we are thrilled to continue our successful co-operation with the Wiesbaden City Choir. Having initially commenced as his entry for a choral competition in Aachen, Brahm’s “Rinaldo” Cantata is scored for the unusual combination of solo tenor, male chorus and orchestra. Brahms however put the work aside for a few years, having been unable to finish the final chorus by the deadline, and it eventually had its first performance in 1869 in Vienna with Gustav Walter as the tenor soloist. The internationally renowned heldentenor Burkhard Fritz will perform the role of Rinaldo in our programme. Just like Brahms’ work, Felix Mendelssohn’s “The First Walpurgis Night” is also based on a text by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who had written it specifically to be set to music. As composer he had initially earmarked his friend Carl Friedrich Zelter, who tried twice, but did not complete a setting, ultimately passing the task on to his then 24-year old composition student Mendelssohn.