Schönberg: Jacob's Ladder | Ingo Metzmacher | NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra | NDR Vokalensemble

[@kevinoconnell6848]

This fragment for me contains the greatest music Schoenberg ever wrote. Despite the comments below, a capacity audience here is highly enthused by it. The performance shows total commitment with some really extraordinary singing. It is a quite inspirational experience. Thank you for posting it. Someone says 'it did not last a century.' I have been listening to it for forty years and it gets better and better.

[@NDRKlassik]

We very much appreciate the fact that you like Schönberg's music so much and are delighted with the compliment. Thank you very much!

[@roberthalsall5337]

Incredible performance of one of the greatest spiritual masterpieces. Vielen Dank Elbphilharmonie.

[@NDRKlassik]

It is a great pleasure for us. We have to thank you!

[@DmitryTimofeev]

Amazing performers and performance! Bravo!!!

[@NDRKlassik]

Many thanks!!

[@ChollieD]

I just wish that Schönberg would have _finished_ this and Moses Und Aron. 🙂 The music is challenging enough without it being incomplete to boot. But I'm glad that good orchestras and choirs still believe in performing it! What a difficult sing, congratulations to the choir master! Thanks for putting this online, NDR EO. Everyone sounds great.

[@NDRKlassik]

Thank you for your kind words, much appreciated (maybe even more than you'd think)! 😊

[@machida5114]

sodelicious....................................

[@filosoforvgsapereaude5020]

Otra música otras sensaciones. Todo está bien.

[@GhtPTR]

I never liked that music at all. For very long years we had to cope with 'contemporary music' each and every concert, to the point the public deserted the concert hall progressively. The seventies and eighties were truly a time of musical terror.

[@christophlieben886]

This music was actually composed in 1917...

[@GhtPTR]

@@christophlieben886 Yes, it didn't last a century.

[@SZ-ef9lz]

“It must be admitted that to the larger part of our public, Brahms is still an incomprehensible terror.” from a music review, Boston, 1885 - Well obviously these people were wrong, I would dare to say...

[@GhtPTR]

@@SZ-ef9lz Funny you talk about Brahms who said that he didn't understand how Bruckner's works could even be called music. Of course, Brahms was under the influence of Hanslick. Now, seriously, I never bought into the 'if weirdos criticize what we consider now great art, it's fine to create weird works". At the orchestra, I honestly didn't mind playing contemporary works but I very rarely listen to any of those works on my own. To me, the metrics is simple : if the audience doesn't like the music, it fails. Fauré used to say that music has to be beautiful immediately and all the time. That's the reason why I believe contemporary music was a dead end. Shortly before he died, my conductor once asked me what I thought of contemporary music. I told him that it made no sense because music is about alternating tension and rest, and that music that exacerbates tension cannot satisfy the audience's expectations. I had created several of his works, so we knew what we were talking about. He looked at me for a long time and said: ‘You're right, it was all going nowhere’. Sadly, that was the last time we would have the opportunity to talk about it.

[@DonFranArobe]

Thanks goodness some of the pieces produced in those "times of musical terror" are becoming increasingly part of the repertoire. I'm not gonna say that everything composed between the 70-80s was a masterpiece, but at least pieces from Ligeti, Lutoslawski and B.A Zimmermann are regularly played in concert halls and no one is scared of them.