Under Mathieu Romano’s baton, the Aedes ensemble and Les Siècles plunge back into the midst of the great century of German Romantic music for a programme devoted to three composers who embody the period from 1850 to 1870 : Brahms, Wagner and Bruckner, whose bicentenary we celebrate in 2024.

German Romantic music has a spiritual dimension which points up the analogy between the worlds of sounds and emotions. Brahms uses the human voice to express the torments of the soul in Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny), his motet Warum ist das Licht gegeben dem Mühseligen? (Why has light been given to the weary of soul?), and his Alto Rhapsody.

But it also the soul which feels ecstasy when it senses the infinite, when the artist is at one with Nature and the contemplation of beauty becomes pure reverence, as in Bruckner’s Abendzauber (Evening Magic).

Our programme concentrates on this spiritual aspect of German Romanticism, the music of inward contemplation. It gathers together those works which express humanity’s irreconcilable yearnings – between the sensual and the spiritual, between sacred and profane love – whose apotheosis is heard in the final chorus (Pilgrims’ Chorus) of Wagner’s Tannhaüser.