G.Lili Boulanger was just 24 when she died in 1918. However, the French composer and winner of the renowned Rome Prize left behind an extensive catalog of works. One of his last pieces is a nocturne for orchestra, “D’un matin de printemps”, the sound sketch of a spring morning, which however sounds less like a departure and seems to get more and more breathless. At least that’s how California-raised South Korean guest conductor Holly Hyun Choe brought the work to a head when she performed the state orchestra’s last symphony concert. Darmstadt opened. Choe, who has spent the last two seasons with the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra as an assistant to Paavo Järvi, the former principal conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, had added another composer to his stylistically diverse program. The ten-minute piece “A drama in the air” by Swedish Britta Byström, born in 1977, refers to a story by Jules Verne about a hot air balloon flight that, among other things, takes off from Frankfurt, was not so easy with its light and airy orchestration to be grasped as it had pretended to do at first sight.
Pianist Herbert Schuch, born in 1979, was not necessarily light, but rather agile, but also clearly determined when dealing with Robert Schumann’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in A minor, Op. 54, as reliably performed by Darmstadt State orchestra, but not unnecessarily duplicated. With Franz Schubert’s musical Moment in F minor D 780/3, Schuch expressed his thanks for the loud applause, which at the end of the concert was also addressed to Holly Hyun Choe and the beautifully arranged Darmstadt State Orchestra. It’s always nice to see how open and enthusiastic the Darmstadt audience can be when it comes to lesser-known works. Of course, in the rarely heard Symphony No. 1 in G minor, Op. 7 by the Danish composer Carl Nielsen, the guest conductor conveyed the exciting and rapid changes of light between lyricism and motor activity, between late-romantic indulgence and austere departure, even ideally.
