CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL 2025

In 1940, Sergei Prokofiev sees the clouds of the bloody Second World War thickening and the "storm" of destruction and death breaking out. And through his wildly beautiful Seventh Piano Sonata, he sonically captures the relentless brutality that Europe is experiencing. Five years later, Richard Strauss mourns for his devastated homeland, paying for its "sins," as he mourns for the past glory of its spiritual heritage, which has now been shattered. Each of them thus speaks of the "laurels" of victory but also the "cypresses" of the dead. And a few years later, in 1958, in distant Greece, the young Mikis Theodorakis, having experienced the tragedy of the bloody civil war and the hopes for a better tomorrow, bears witness through his charged music to the passions, conflicts, and quests of an entire era.