20 SEPTEMBER 2020
Free entrance
From 10:00 Cemetery opens for ticket holders only
12:00 & 15:00 Liberation Concert 2020 (no interval)
Struggle
With profound, heroic, still and stirring music, the 15th Liberation Concert highlights all aspects of the struggle for life and death. “Why we fight” is the title of the penultimate episode of the TV series Band of Brothers. When the exhausted allied soldiers hear the enemy has been defeated, in the background the Adagio from Beethoven’s finest string quartet can be heard from the ruins of a bombed out German city. Human compassion masterfully converted into intimate music by Beethoven.
A similar search for meaning and interpretation is construed entirely differently by the American Charles Ives in The Unanswered Question. Hear how, from afar, the trumpet poses the eternal question about the meaning of human existence and how the woodwinds try to answer it.
The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams is considered the symbol of grief and loss after the battles in World War I. Vaughan Williams began composing in 1914 but was interrupted by the outbreak of war. In this meditative work, the solo violin portrays the taking flight and ascent of a skylark.
Finally, Joseph Haydn. In the rational world of the late eighteenth century, regular changes thoroughly stirred the artworld. This was also known as Sturm und Drang, in which Haydn participated with his Trauer Symphony. Haydn’s final wish was for his Trauer Symphony to be performed at his own funeral. He died in 1809 while Napoleon’s armies invaded Vienna.
South Netherlands Philharmonic
Conductor Arjan Tien Violin Lei Wang
Beethoven (arr. Davis) Adagio ma non Troppo from String Quartet no. 14
Ives The Unanswered Question
Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending, for violin and orchestra
Haydn Symphony No. 44 ‘Trauer’