As part of the Hamburg International Music Festival, which has the motto “War and Peace” in 2024, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and chief conductor Alan Gilbert will present Arnold Schönberg’s melodrama “A Survivor from Warsaw” with Dominique Horwitz as speaker. The piece from 1947 was written as a musical memorial to commemorate the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. Schönberg combines his fascinating music with the description of a narrator hidden in the sewers, alongside German commands, martial rhythms – and finally the hopeful Hebrew words of “Shema Yisrael”, with which Jewish people prepare for death.

Beethoven’s famous Ninth Symphony then opens the way towards hope and brotherhood. Its furious finale culminates in Friedrich Schiller’s verse “All men become brothers,” which prevails against all destructive forces. “Joy, beautiful spark of the gods!” – in the Elbphilharmonie with a top-class cast with the American soprano Susanna Phillips, star alto Gerhild Romberger and bass Michael Nagy.

This concert will be livestreamed on NDR’s website, Facebook, and Youtube.