Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker

The nine-day chamber music festival at the end of July is being held for the 81st time and is dedicated this year to Joseph Haydn. In addition to his music, the festival features connections to contemporary music, Impressionism, Romanticism, and Baroque music—which may have inspired Haydn. The program features performances by fortepiano pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout, as well as the rarely played baryton—Haydn’s favorite instrument—in the opening concert with the versatile cellist Giovanni Sollima. Till Brönner draws inspiration from Haydn’s works for jazz improvisations, Katharina Thalbach and Udo Samel explore Haydn and his era in two musical-literary evenings, and the Kuss Quartet brings Haydn’s “The Seven Last Words” to the stage, paired with a world premiere and dance. On two “debut days,” young up-and-coming talents will showcase their skills in several short concerts: award-winning string quartets, as well as pianists performing solo and in duos with Markus Becker and Igor Levit. Under the direction of Gudrun Schröfel, an amateur choir forms each morning—giving a concert at the end of the week—and a colloquium explores the question of to what extent a festival can be a sustainable, social space.