Berliner Philharmoniker I

For this concert, conducted by his former orchestra colleagues, Dean presents his orchestral piece *Beggars and Angels*, inspired by an exhibition in Potsdam where sculptures of beggars were juxtaposed with paintings of angels—spheres that were only seemingly contradictory to the Australian musician, as upon closer inspection, some of the angels appeared to him as reflections of the beggars.

Alongside two other works by Dean, the program features Debussy’s *La cathédrale engloutie* in Colin Matthews’s sophisticated orchestral version: ethereal sonic magic that evokes a fabled, mystical world.

Brett Dean has already written a whole series of works that explicitly refer to the creative output of Robert and Clara Schumann and their personal circle—references conveyed less through direct quotations than through alienated echoes and fragmentary reminiscences, in which moments of musical Romanticism become perceptible like a historical echo in a contemporary context. The original tonal harmony is distorted by microtonal shifts and clusters, as if in a concave mirror, creating an often surreal-seeming dialogue between the distant past and the present, with Dean occasionally also referencing Schumann’s two poetic alter egos (Florestan and Eusebius) through contrasting sonic states.

Dean also composed such a dialogue in his *Conversations with Schumann* for soprano and orchestra—a “suite” that alternates between impulsive (Florestan) and introverted-lyrical (Eusebius) sections. In his work And once I played Ophelia for the same instrumentation, the ethereal music revolves around the beloved from Shakespeare’s Hamlet who sings her way to her death, whose solo part demands all sorts of things from the soprano: from quarter-tone laments to a triple-sharp F.

Debussy’s La cathédrale engloutie, in Colin Matthews’ brilliant orchestral version, follows with atmospheric music that evokes the image of the Cathedral of Ys through associations with medieval chant, bell tones, and organ sounds; according to a Breton legend, the cathedral rises from the sea at dawn and sinks back down again.

The evening concludes with Brett Dean’s orchestral piece Beggars and Angels, in which menacing bursts of sound meet shimmering string flageolets: the heavenly creatures prove to be fickle, perhaps even dangerous beings.