La Capitale d'Été

The turning point was the failed revolution of 1848–49: before, music was forward-looking, young, like spring; after, it became bombastic, supporting the state. No wonder Yannick Nézet-Séguin always turns to early Romanticism like to a secret, first love. Listen to your inner revolutionary with Schubert, Weber, and Mendelssohn – it's so refreshing!

For us humans, hearing begins before we are born. Babies and toddlers develop something like their own musical taste very early on. The Toddler’s Concerts have been created with this in mind. At the Festspielhaus, full-fledged professional musicians will be presenting the program – in this concert, members of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

Down from the podium and over to the grand piano: star conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin can't hold himself back from the keyboard to simply play together with his friends at the Summer Festival. But is it really “simply”? The pieces he has chosen are top-notch and demand a great deal of virtuosity from the pianist. Still, the contagious joy they all experience is guaranteed to spread to the audience. And we can also look forward to spontaneous interludes and surprises. 

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts the Chamber Orchestra of Europe – an ensemble with a special history. Founded in 1981 by young musicians who had met in the EU Youth Orchestra, the ensemble is still democratically organized today. Claudio Abbado was the most important mentor from the very beginning. Today, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe is one of Europe's leading chamber orchestras.

A meeting of two  worlds: Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony, still deeply rooted in his Russian homeland, contrasts with the late Paganini Rhapsody – an American work whose title not coincidentally recalls Gershwin's famous Rhapsody in Blue. The program is sure to be full of musical aha! moments, reviving memories of Nézet-Séguin's acclaimed Rachmaninoff concerts at the Festspielhaus. 

An unusual program where Antonio Pappano, Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, demonstrates both his opera experience and his dramatic flair. Vilde Frang interprets Beethoven's Violin Concerto on a 1734 Guarneri. Sarah Jakubiak and Clay Hilley can be heard in Wagner's "Liebestod" act from Tristan und Isolde. In addition to his role as Siegfried, the American heroic tenor has already earned acclaim in the Festspielhaus as the emperor in Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten. 

A meeting of classical stars: legendary violinist, violist, and conductor Pinchas Zukerman, a defining figure of the international music scene for over five decades, joins star violinist Daniel Hope, an audience favorite in Baden-Baden for many years. On the podium for this varied program: Zubin Mehta, one of the great personalities of the classical world over the last decades.