Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester

This concert promises music that paints vivid pictures and tells stories using the orchestra’s rich colours. Debussy’s ballet music, 'Jeux' (Games), is set on a tennis court. As evening falls, a man searches for his ball and meets two girls. He flirts with them, but cannot decide between them, and so they leave him behind.

Igor Stravinsky’s symphonic poem Le chant du rossignol (The Nightingale) sets Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale to music. In the tale, a nightingale sings for the Emperor of China, but is supplanted by a mechanical nightingale. The emperor falls into deep mourning over the loss of the nightingale and nearly dies. However, the nightingale then flies back and sings the emperor back to health.

Few orchestral works tell a story as vividly and comprehensively as Richard Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks. Initially, Strauss was reluctant to offer explanations: “Analysis is impossible for me; all the wit is expressed in sound”. However, he later wrote down his programme in 22 points, from 'Once upon a time' to 'There he dangles, the air is leaving him, a final twitch – Till's mortal life has ended'. Even without explanations, though, one can hear Till laughing and the pots rolling in the market square.

On the other hand, Sergei Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto is purely instrumental. However, one can still hear the cheerful atmosphere of the summery Siberian landscape through which Prokofiev travelled while composing it.
(Frankfurter Museums-Gesellschaft e.V.)