Fire and Water

The Anglistenchor Heidelberg warmly invites you to two concerts on Saturday, 12 July at 11:00 a.m. in the Friedenskirche in Heidelberg-Handschuhsheim and on Sunday, 13 July at 7:00 p.m. in the Aula of the Alte Universität Heidelberg.

Entitled Fire and Water, the current programme translates the contrasts of the elements into a colourful soundscape. A polyphonic musical panorama unfolds between burning earth and flowing water, between flickering embers and quiet depths, between dramatic outbursts and quiet melancholy.

Wilhelm Berger’s Die Capelle am Strande is played, a late Romantic piece full of vastness and longing, which seems like a musical homage to the power of the sea. Johannes Brahms’ mysterious ballad Vineta takes up the legend of a sunken city and evokes past worlds in a dark choral sound.

A stark contrast follows with Hugo Distler’s gripping Feuerreiter – the dark story of an ominous rider linked to the outbreak of a fire – a work full of expressive drama and inner tension. Thomas Morley’s Fyer Fyer, in which the blazing fire becomes a symbol of burning passion, continues playfully and full of energy.

In Charles Villiers Stanford’s The Bluebird, the mood shifts to the ethereal: a delicate, floating soundscape in which the flight of a bird becomes a metaphor for freedom and silence. Eric Whitacre’s Water Night then lends a voice to the night – flowing harmonies and spherical dissonances form an image of calm and inner movement.

A strong, almost humorous contrast can be heard in György Orbán’s Daemon Irrepit Callidus, a short, rhythmically dense work about a small, cheeky demon that surprises with its joyful sound. This is followed by Libera me by Lajos Bárdos – a haunting, tonally dense prayer for redemption, whose plaintive urgency makes the fear of the last judgement audible. The heat of the fire is not felt here as an external element, but as an inner threat – as a flame of fear and hope at the same time.

This existential tension is taken up again in Michael Trotta’s Dies Irae. In rhythmically concise language, he sets the ‘Day of Wrath’ to music – the biblical end-time scenario in which the fire of the Last Judgement consumes all earthly things. Trotta’s composition combines drama with modern accessibility and allows the apocalyptic power of fire to flare up musically.

The programme then returns to softer tones with the Scottish folk song Loch Lomond – a melancholy and beautiful love story in a modern arrangement by Jonathan Quick. Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Dark Eyed Sailor brings British folklore into play: a ballad-like tale of loyalty and reunion, full of warmth and melodic clarity.

Finally, Jaakko Mäntyjärvi’s Double Double Toil and Trouble immerses the choir in the witches’ scene from Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth – a work full of sonic magic that plays with dissonance, rhythm and theatricality.

Between the pieces, there are solo contributions and texts (Patrick Buchholz, Heidelberg) that illuminate the theme from a literary perspective, intensify emotions and open up new perspectives – a dialogue between music and language.

The musical director is Alexander Albrecht.

We look forward to seeing you and wish you an unforgettable concert experience! Admission is free – donations are very welcome.