Memories
Christoph Prégardien

A recital composed of memories. In two sets of three chapters, Christoph Prégardien, one of the greatest lied singers of the past decades, and pianist Stefan Litwin explore the art of the lied in its many forms of expression. Their journey begins in the world of folk music, in a distant memory, where the individual merges with the group, personal experience with legend, song with its echoes.

From there, it is only a small step to the primal theme of romanticism, nature as a mirror of the heart. A metaphor for flight and refuge, a symbol of pain, comfort and the divine. The path of memory then reaches the landscape of destruction in songs written in the cultural shell shock of World War I. Whether they make use of irony (which tells people more about themselves than a thousand songs of praise) or reflect on Brecht’s ‘finstere Zeiten’ (dark times), artists move in the dialectic between the familiar and the strange, loss and longing – in search of that ‘something’ which, according to Ernst Bloch, ‘shines into the childhood of all and in which no one has yet been: a homeland’.

At the heart of this lied programme is the work of Hanns Eisler: in Vienna, a student of Schönberg; in Berlin, the musical amplifier of the labour movement; in America, an exile; and in the newly formed East Germany, the composer of the national anthem. You will also hear the world premiere of Menschlichkeit, a composition by Stefan Litwin inspired by the poem of the same name by Frank Wedekind which, 120 years after it was published, reflects with some bitterness that war and killing know no end.

By buying a ticket for this charity recital, you are supporting the fight against cancer, as half the proceeds will go directly to the Fondation contre le Cancer. More info on this collaboration