With music by Ludwig van Beethoven and Robert Schumann, the 18th Grafenegg Festival came to an end on 8 September 2024 at the Wolkenturm in a dreamlike evening atmosphere in front of an enthusiastic audience.
In the past four festival weeks, numerous guest performances by outstanding orchestras took place on the stages of the Wolkenturm and the Auditorium: the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra played Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Scheherazade’ under Alain Altinoglu, the Orchestra National de France under Cristian Măcelaru performed Berlioz‘ ‘Symphonie fantastique’, the Staatskapelle Dresden under Daniele Gatti performed Mahler’s First Symphony, and the Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt performed Berlioz’ ‘Symphonie fantastique’ for the first time.
The Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden performed Mahler’s First Symphony under Daniele Gatti, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle played ‘Aquifer’ by Thomas Adès and Anton Bruckner’s ‘Romantic’ for the first time. The Bayreuth Festival Orchestra performed excerpts from ‘Die Walküre’ with Pablo Heras-Casado in the first Austrian guest appearance in its history. On 4 September 2024, the 200th anniversary of Anton Bruckner’s birth, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra performed the Vienna version of Mahler’s First Symphony under the baton of Christian Thielemann.
To close the Grafenegg Festival 2024, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, conducted by its chief conductor Daniele Gatti, performed Ludwig van Beethoven’s overture to ‘The Creatures of Prometheus’ and the Fourth Piano Concerto with festival director Rudolf Buchbinder at the piano, as well as Robert Schumann’s Fourth Symphony.
World-class soloists, like the sopranos Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, Sarah Maria Sun and Vida Miknevičiūtė, the mezzo-soprano Patricia Nolz, the tenor Michael Spyres, the baritone Andrè Schuen with the pianist Daniel Heide, bass Günther Groissböck, pianist Ariel Lanyi, violinist María Dueñas, violinist Renaud Capuçon, his brother, cellist Gautier Capuçon and actress Ruth Brauer-Kvam performed at the festival.
Rudolf Buchbinder, Artistic Director of the Grafenegg Festival: ‘Once again a wonderful summer full of marvellous music has come to an end in Grafenegg, the 18th since the first festival in 2007. I would like to thank all the artists, our fantastic audience and the team in Grafenegg. Thankfully, the last concert of the festival leaves no room for too much melancholy, because we are already thinking about the next Grafenegg Festival, whose programme we will present on 4 November. I look forward to welcome the world’s best performers and orchestras to Grafenegg again in 2025.’
