Adam Fischer conducts Haydn and Bartok by Various, De (2019/2019), Director Adam Fischer, Konzerthalle, Bamberg, Alemania

No audience ever forgets Haydn’s Symphony no. 45! An anecdote throws light on the programme behind this “farewell” symphony: when Haydn wrote this work in 1772, his employer Count Esterházy was so enamoured of his summer residence in the country that he spent longer and longer there each year. His musicians had to stay there, too – and after a long season, they were eager to finally return home. They asked Haydn for help, and the latter’s mischievous nature promptly inspired him to write an original symphony in which the usual grand finale breaks off and is replaced by a slow Adagio, during which the musicians leave the stage one by one. At the premiere, the count was at first disconcerted, but recognised what the symphony was trying to tell him. He is supposed to have said: “Very well, if they are all leaving, we should too.” In our concert, the musicians and our conductor Adam Fischer will return to the stage, of course, accompanied by the two soloists Miklós Sebestyén and Ruxandra Donose, to perform Bartók’s only opera “Bluebeard’s Castle”. Written in 1911, its fiery music is full of elements taken from Hungarian folk melodies. Conjuring up splendid musical visions, the opera evokes a legendary tale: Duke Bluebeard takes Judith to his dark castle, which she is supposed to fill with joy and sunshine. She is permitted to open the seven locked doors – but with each key, she gets closer to his dark and lonely soul. Behind the last door is the room of the women Bluebeard loved before Judith – and she, too, is then locked inside. Bluebeard remains in darkness, unrecognised, shutting his dreams and memories of love away inside himself.