The Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg is the largest Bavarian opera
orchestra
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families.
There are typically four main sections of instruments:
* bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...
after the
Bavarian State Orchestra
The Bavarian State Orchestra (german: Bayerisches Staatsorchester, italic=no) is the orchestra of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Germany. It has given its own series of concerts, the , since 1811.
Profile
On 9 December 2011, this ensemble c ...
. It has 91 musicians and is the orchestra of the
Staatstheater Nürnberg
The Staatstheater Nürnberg is a German theatre company in Nuremberg, Bavaria. The theatre is one of four Bavarian state theatres and shows operas, plays, ballets and concerts.
History
Its main venue, the opera house ("Opernhaus Nürnberg"), i ...
.
History of the Staatsphilharmonie
The history of the Nuremberg State Philharmonic dates back to the old Nuremberg Imperial City Council Music, which can be traced back to 1377.
After Nuremberg had already become a centre of the new art form of opera in the Baroque period, the Nuremberg council musicians were continuously called upon to perform at the newly founded "Nuremberg National Theatre" from 1801 onwards. In 1833, the orchestra moved into the newly built city theatre on Lorenzer Platz. After the opening of the opera house on the Ring (1905), in 1922 the municipal theatre orchestra was merged with the privately supported Philharmonic Orchestra, founded around 1880 by
Hans Winderstein, and the orchestra was transferred to the municipal service. This created the Nuremberg Philharmonic Orchestra, initially with a strength of 110 musicians, which was then reduced during the economic crises of the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is ...
. In 1944, the Nuremberg theatre was closed and the orchestra was drafted for military service.
As early as 1946/47, performances began again under the direction of artistic director
Karl Pschigode and general music director Alfons Dressel. During the directorship of
Hans Gierster (1965–1988), there were highly acclaimed performances of modern operas such as ''
Moses und Aron
''Moses und Aron'' (English: ''Moses and Aaron'') is a three-act opera by Arnold Schoenberg with the third act unfinished. The German-language, German libretto is by the composer after the Book of Exodus. Hungarian composer Zoltán Kocsis complet ...
'' (Arnold Schönberg), ''
Die Soldaten
' (''The Soldiers'') is a four-act opera in German by Bernd Alois Zimmermann, based on the 1776 play by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz. In a letter accompanying his newly printed play (23 July 1776, aged 24) that he sent to his best friend, the Ge ...
'' (Bernd Alois Zimmermann), ''Träume'' (Isang Yung) and ''
Intolleranza 70'' (Luigi Nono). In 1988–1992,
Christian Thielemann
Christian Thielemann (born 1 April 1959) is a German conductor. He is currently chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden. He was artistic director of the Salzburg Easter Festival from 2013 to 2022, and a regular conductor at the Bayreuth Fe ...
as GMD shaped the programme, especially with works of the German Romantic period. He was followed by
Eberhard Kloke
Eberhard Kloke (born 24 November 1948) is a German conductor and composer.
Early life and education
Born in Hamburg, Eberhard Kloke studied as a conductor at the Berlin University of the Arts and also for his degree in musicology and German St ...
, who placed special emphasis on the Viennese School and contemporary music. Under his successor
Philippe Auguin
Philippe Auguin (born 19 February 1961, Nice, France) is a French conductor.
Auguin studied conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. He also studied conducting with Franco Ferrara.
He served as an assistant conductor t ...
, GMD from 1998 to 2005, the Nuremberg Philharmonic Orchestra performed the complete ''
Der Ring des Nibelungen
(''The Ring of the Nibelung''), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the '' Nibe ...
'' by Richard Wagner for the first time in almost 50 years; with this, the Nuremberg State Theatre also gave a guest performance in Beijing in autumn 2005 that attracted worldwide attention. From 2006 to 2011,
Christof Prick
Christof Prick (born 1946) is a German orchestra conductor. He uses the name Christof Perick in English-speaking countries. His father was the concertmaster of the Hamburg Philharmonic.
Biography
Born in Hamburg, Prick studied at the Universi ...
Chief Conductor of the orchestra; his work focused on a Mozart cycle as well as works by Wagner and Strauss. From 2011 to 2018,
Marcus Bosch
Marcus Bosch (born 28 October 1969) is a German conductor. He was Generalmusikdirektor (GMD) in Aachen, held the position at the Staatstheater Nürnberg from 2011, and with the Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock from 2020. He is the artistic direc ...
GMD of the orchestra, which was renamed the "Nuremberg State Philharmonic" in late 2011. During his tenure, the Orchestra Academy was founded,
and Bosch's projects included the recording of ''
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg'' for
Arte
Arte (; (), sometimes stylized in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European public service channel dedicated to culture.
It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based European Economic Interest Grouping ARTE, plu ...
, the first live cinema broadcast of the premiere of ''
Tristan und Isolde
''Tristan und Isolde'' (''Tristan and Isolde''), WWV 90, is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult by Gottfried von Strassburg. It was comp ...
'', and the complete recording of
Dvořáks symphonic works.
In 2018,
Joana Mallwitz
Joana Mallwitz (born 1986 in Hildesheim) is a German conductor and pianist.
Biography
Mallwitz began to study violin at age 3, and piano at age 5. At age 14, she became a pupil of Christa-Maria Hartmann and Karl-Heinz Kämmerling. She continued ...
took over as conductor of the Staatsphilharmonie.
Premieres, guest performances, series
The Nuremberg State Philharmonic has premiered numerous works in the opera field, for ewample by
Boris Blacher
Boris Blacher (30 January 1975) was a German composer and librettist.
Life
Blacher was born when his parents (of German-Estonian and Russian backgrounds) were living within a Russian-speaking community in the Manchurian town of Niuzhuang () (h ...
,
Werner Heider,
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze (1 July 1926 – 27 October 2012) was a German composer. His large oeuvre of works is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as ...
,
Wilfried Hiller
Wilfried Hiller (born 15 March 1941) is a German composer. He became known above all for his stage works for families, children and young people.
Life and work
Hiller was born the son of the teacher August Hiller and his wife Josepha Hiller, n ...
,
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith (; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advocate of the ' ...
,
Wilhelm Killmayer
Wilhelm Killmayer (21 August 1927 – 20 August 2017) was a German composer of classical music, a conductor and an academic teacher of composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München from 1973 to 1992. He composed symphonies and s ...
,
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde composers in the latter half of the twentieth century ...
,
Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Eugeniusz Penderecki (; 23 November 1933 – 29 March 2020) was a Polish composer and conductor. His best known works include ''Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima'', Symphony No. 3, his '' St Luke Passion'', '' Polish Requiem'', ' ...
,
Aribert Reimann
Aribert Reimann (born 4 March 1936) is a German composer, pianist and accompanist, known especially for his literary operas. His version of Shakespeare's ''King Lear'', the opera '' Lear'', was written at the suggestion of Dietrich Fischer-Diesk ...
,
Isang Yun
Isang Yun, also spelled Yun I-sang (17 September 1917 – 3 November 1995), was a Korean-born composer who made his later career in West Germany.
Early life and education
Yun was born in Sancheong (Sansei), Korea under Japanese rule, Chōsen ...
,
Hans Zender
Johannes Wolfgang Zender (22 November 1936 – 22 October 2019) was a German conductor and composer. He was the chief conductor of several opera houses, and his compositions, many of them vocal music, have been performed at international festival ...
and
Bernd Alois Zimmermann
Bernd Alois Zimmermann (20 March 1918 – 10 August 1970) was a German composer. He is perhaps best known for his opera ''Die Soldaten'', which is regarded as one of the most important German operas of the 20th century, after those of Berg. As a ...
. Since 2005, the International
Gluck
Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Gluck (; 2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire, he g ...
Festival has added another accent to the music theatre of the late 18th century. With the in the , the Nuremberg State Philharmonic, together with the
Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra
The Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra (German: Nürnberger Symphoniker) is a German orchestra based in Nuremberg. Its principal concert venue is the Meistersingerhalle. The orchestra's current ''Intendant'' (managing and artistic director) is Lucius ...
, has been staging the largest open-air classical music event in Europe since 1999. Guest tours have taken the Nuremberg State Philharmonic among others to Salzburg, Nice, Beijing, Shen Zhen and the Hong Kong Arts Festival.
The Nuremberg State Philharmonic Orchestra, which has been among the top group A of German cultural orchestras since 1981, also organises its own symphony concert series in addition to its activities as the orchestra of the Nuremberg State Theatre: the Philharmonic Concerts in the Nuremberg
Meistersingerhalle
Meistersingerhalle is the municipal culture and congress centre of Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany. It is named after the tradition of the Meistersinger (Master singers) in the town, which Wagner reflected in his opera ''Die Meistersinger von Nürnber ...
. In addition, they also perform elsewhere as a concert orchestra and are active in the field of children's, school and youth concerts. In addition, they have been organising a successful series of chamber concerts (as Philharmonie e.V.) in the Jugendstil foyer of the opera house since 1994.
Conductors and General Music Directors
See also
*
Staatstheater Nürnberg
The Staatstheater Nürnberg is a German theatre company in Nuremberg, Bavaria. The theatre is one of four Bavarian state theatres and shows operas, plays, ballets and concerts.
History
Its main venue, the opera house ("Opernhaus Nürnberg"), i ...
References
External links
*
Staatstheater Nürnberg
{{portal bar, Classical Music, Germany
German symphony orchestras
Nuremberg