Voices from the Edge

In Voices from the Edge, ICO’s Principal Conductor Jörg Widmann offers a unique insight into Beethoven’s enigmatic Grosse Fuge, his towering masterpiece of fuge and counterpoint. Even today, the Fuge remains one of the most incredible and most modern pieces of music ever written. Movie composer Eric Korngold’s seldom heard Symphonic Serenade dazzles in optimism and luxurious sounds. In Widmann’s elegiac Aria for Strings, the instruments are the vocal protagonists testing their limits at the stratospheric heights and profound depths of their ranges. Finally, Mendelssohn’s String Symphony No. 9 is one of the best known of his 13 string symphonies. Aside from the Baroque and Swiss evocations, one can only be amazed at the accomplishment of the 14-year-old composer.